Line #102 Headscratchers/TheSixthSense


1	''If by some chance you don't already know the secrets of this movie, you might want to stop here, because there are many unmarked massive spoilers ahead.''
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4	* Why is the movie called The Sixth Sense? He sees dead people. Sight is one of the five senses. Its an extension of one of the five senses, not a sixth one.
5	** He sees DEAD people, you know, ghosts. Some people think that seeing ghosts and spirits and whatnot require a sixth sense. Hence the title of the film.
6	** Cole explains to Malcolm that prickly sensation where the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. That sounds pretty sixth sense-y.
7	** It's likely not literal sight. In film they have no choice but to use two senses to represent all sorts of different things (imagination, hallucination, visualization, metaphor, and in this case, psychic phenomena), and of course a child wouldn't know how else to express the experience in words but to refer to it as though it were literally "seeing" dead people, and would be so used to the experience that he no longer consciously recognizes the difference between it and "ordinary" sight. Or maybe he does literally see him and they just needed a snazzy title. [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal Alliterations sell]].
8	** If it were him taking visuals that are indistinguishable from normal sight, that would still be sight, just sight of a different kind. Similar to using infrared goggles - you're seeing things the naked eye could not, but you're still seeing them. If he could mistake regular sight for sensing ghosts, then it has to be sight.
9	** A sense is a means in which your body perceives outside stimuli, the way in which you conceptualise it is related, but not the same thing. The actual mechanics of the boy's power are unexplained, but it is not a case of light reflecting off a ghost, hitting his eye and being picked up in this manner. He clearly has some ability to pick up stimuli that normal humans lack, hence an additional[[note]]Humans actually have at least 10 senses, the ones that Aristotle missed are nociception (pain), equilibrioception (balance), proprioception and kinaesthesia (joint motion and acceleration), sense of time and thermoception (temperature differences), and depending on what definition is being used it can go up to about twenty. Sight alone can be considered as three different senses - colour, brightness and depth.[[/note]] sense.
10	** It comes from old folk tales where such things (seeing dead things, talking to spirits, etc) were considered an additional sense as they were something above and beyond the senses everyone else had. More broadly, it's not a literal bodily sense, it's a extraordinary/spiritual/non-tangible/non-physical sense. It's using these older definitions.
11	** A poster (the very poster on the [[Film/TheSixthSense Film]] page, for that matter) lists "Touch, Taste, Hear, Smell, See, '''Fear'''" (emphasis mine). Fear may not be a "sense" by the traditional or literal definition of the word, but it certainly fits the movie. Plus, [=ESP=] ''is'' traditionally called "the (or 'a') sixth sense".
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13	* Why is the boy's mother taking him to see a dead psychiatrist?
14	** She isn't. The psychiatrist finds the boy, and it's presented in such a way that the unspoiled viewer erroneously fills in the blanks and ''thinks'' the mother arranged it.
15	** If she had, she could find a much better dead psychiatrist than Creator/BruceWillis.
16	** The way it can be interpreted is that Bruce Willis's character was put on the case before he died, hence why he shows up at the kid's house at the beginning. However, the mother doesn't know that he's hanging around all ghostly and still being a therapist; as far as she knows, he passed away and she's on the waiting list for another guy/Cole is seeing another therapist on the side/she gave up on the idea of therapy.
17	** The same reason all the other ghosts do. He needs help getting closure.
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19	* Does Cole realize this guy helping him is dead, too, or is he fooled in the same way as the viewer?
20	** He always knew. It is established that he saw the gunshot wound all along just like he sees all the ghosts in their dead state. He pointedly looks at it several times.
21	** He knew from the word go. Notice how he always treats Willis warily, and says "You can't help me," and "Oh. You're one of the nice ones." Never drawing attention to Willis, touching him, or asking his mom about him. Part of his "therapy" could be considered his relationship with Bruce changing his POV on all ghosts being evil/bad/threatening, to "they need help, which I can give them".
22	** How would he know he's a ghost upon first contact? (Note: TitleDrop, maybe?) He feels eyes on him when Willis is around him near the bench, but when he follows him into the church he is totally unafraid upon seeing him and appears not to recognize him as the presence he felt before. Even if he did make the connection, that wouldn't prove the guy watching him was a ghost. Willis's wounds are covered up and since he's not in the room with anyone while he's pissed off until the end, their breath is never visible. But Cole ''is'' uncertain, starting to get a little paranoid about everyone he meets since he's around ghosts so much these days, and says, "I...''am'' going to see you again...aren't I??" He's wary again when Willis shows up at his home, but he warms up to him quickly and once again, has no proof that he is a ghost. If the idea is still in his head at all later in the film, he's probably pushed it out by the time it suddenly hits him, during the infamous "I see dead people" scene. ''That's'' when the shit hits the fan. You can see the fear flood into his eyes when Willis tells his story because he realizes ''he's heard stories like this before. He knows this mentality. He's been hanging out with a ghost!'' But he decides to stick with him. Because they've already started to grow close and, as he tells Willis later on, "If you can't help me, no one can!"
23	** At the ''absolute latest'', Cole ''has'' to know Malcolm is a ghost by the time they talk after the Sword in the Stone play. He's happy because for him, things have taken a turn for the better, yet he's also on the verge of tears and can't quite keep his smile - watch that actor, the boy is ''amazing''! That's why he thinks they won't be seeing more of each other - he's heard Mal's story, he knows this will have given him the closure he needed, and now he'll be moving on.
24	** It's firmly established in the film that people can detect ghosts, but don't - it gets cold when they get emotional - it's cold in Cole's house, and when Willis figures it all out at the end you can see his wife's breath. One can easily assume that someone as sensitive as Cole can tell a ghost from a mile away no matter how the ghost is feeling.
25	** Do note that after Cole and Malcolm's first meeting in the church, that Cole, on the way to the exit, loots one of the [[{{Foreshadowing}} religious figurines]] from a nick-knack table. Apparently, he feels the need for an additional protective totem for his anti-ghost tent at home. Interesting...
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27	* The boy says that ghosts 'don't know they are dead'. Wouldn't the trio of ghosts hanging from nooses in the school hallway notice the rope? Or the fact that they've been hanging around (sorry) for a number of centuries?
28	** The implication is that ghosts have a very diminished awareness, sort of their own personal WeirdnessCensor. They continue as if they were alive, not noticing any signs that their life is over and the world can't see them. Otherwise, they would have all figured it out very quickly.
29	** They probably think they're still dying and the strangely dressed people are part of a really [[Main/DyingDream weird dream]].
30	** What Cole said was that ''some'' ghosts don't realize they're dead. The ghosts from the school are probably in the group that does realize it.
31	** Probably also depends on how they died. Kind of hard to censor away a hanging.
32	** [[Literature/AnOccurrenceAtOwlCreekBridge Or is it?]]
33	** Hangings where it took a bit for the condemned to pass out weren't exactly unheard-of, and if they basically transitioned from "twilight/blacking out" to being a ghost, it's not inconceivable. Looking at the scenes, it looks like they're ''waiting'' to die up there, mentally stuck between being alive and being dead. [[FridgeHorror For two hundred years...]]
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35	* Nobody noticed the kid wandering around the wake with no parents?
36	** Since it's the death of a child, some people might think he was either the dead girl's brother (whose parents are obviously otherwise occupied), a classmate who had been dropped off, or had just walked away from his parents.
37	*** Cole is small for his age and might've been taken for a classmate of the younger sister.
38	** At social events like that, adults tend to be unaware of children they're not responsible for and/or aren't doing anything out of the ordinary.
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40	* Why didn't the mom take the kid to an actual shrink?
41	** Maybe she did. The WeirdnessCensor might have kept Bruce Willis from seeing the shrink. Since an actual shrink would not have that unique condition, the kid never told the shrink about his problem and it was never dealt with. That or she refuses to admit that her son has a problem.
42	** She was quite poor. Therapy is expensive and not everyone can get (or wants) charity.
43	** Exactly; she's a divorcée from what a appears to be a dead beat, and holds two jobs (as per the conversation during the car accident). Perhaps Cole was on Malcolm's waiting list (he has notes on the kid previous to their first encounter), it may be plausible that Cole was a pro-bono case.
44	** She might have originally intended Bruce Willis to be Cole's shrink; when he died, she was put on a waiting list for another shrink or gave up on the idea. Otherwise, there's no explanation for why he showed up at Cole's house at the beginning.
45	** Malcolm's profile of Cole notes that he was "referred autumn 1998", so it's possible that he was supposed to start therapy with Malcolm before the good doc got busy with his not-being-alive-ness.
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47	* How on earth does someone manage to go an entire year without noticing that no one is talking to him or even noticing him?
48	** The same way the other ghosts go decades or centuries and still not know. They don't feel time passing like the living.
49	** There is a very key theory about this film: he's only manifest when he's on-screen. Therefore, he hasn't been knocking around for a year, he simply thinks he has because his "brain", for lack of a better word, is filling in the gaps in his awareness.
50	** If you notice, when he thinks he is late for his anniversary, he says "I can't seem to keep track of time" or something similar. He also does seem to notice himself 'losing' time, and regularly thinks he is late for things.
51	*** Also, if he's only around when he's on screen then what determines when he's on screen and when he isn't? All the other ghosts seem to be around all the time, not just when we see them, so why should Malcolm be an exception? If, as the point below suggests, he knows on some level already that he's dead but just hasn't accepted it yet, that makes more sense but still doesn't really answer why he didn't accept it after like a week of everybody completely and unnaturally ignoring him in every respect.
52	*** How do all the other ghosts seem to be around all the time? There’s nothing to indicate this is true and since they pop up and then disappear, it seems like the opposite is true.
53	** Perhaps deep down, Crowe knew he was dead. That's why he was very careful not to do anything that would make him face it, like directly addressing Cole's doctor or mother.
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55	* Why did the mother poisoning her daughter not put the poison in the soup when it was made instead of doing it right in front of her sick daughter?
56	** Maybe it just never occurred to her that it might be a bad idea to poison the soup in front of the girl. After all, she didn't seem to even bother making any effort to appear upset by her daughter's death, and even called attention to it by wearing bright red to the funeral, which naturally made her stick out like a sore thumb in the sea of black suits and dresses.
57	*** Throughout the movie, the color red means something has been touched by the Dead People. RuleOfSymbolism.
58	*** It's called Munchausen's Syndrome By Proxy. The mother abuses her daughter in order to gain attention and sympathy for herself. The bright red suit (apart from being a lovely piece of symbolism) is just an expression of that desire for attention.
59	** Possibly she was making soup for more people than just her daughter, or her husband was there with her while she was making the soup.
60	** The mother had her back to the girl, and probably thought she couldn't see what she was putting in it. In fact, she might not have, but for the camcorder that Mom didn't realize was running.
61	*** She also walks in with the tray and sets it down without the cleaner. When she looks at Kyra, Kyra is pretending to be asleep, and that's when she goes to get the cleaner bottle from somewhere we can't see.
62	** Maybe she reasoned that poisoning the soup while she was in the kitchen making it was too much of a risk. Someone (i.e. her husband) could have walked in and seen her doing it. Doing it in the girl's room while blocking her view has a much smaller chance of being caught.
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64	* Do we ever find out ''why'' the mother was poisoning her daughter in the first place? ForTheEvulz? What the hell?
65	** ''Munchausen's Syndrome'' is a mental illness where you seek attention by harming yourself; ''Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy'' is the same, but you seek attention by harming (and possibly going so far as killing) those in your care, particularly your children. This is the obvious reading of that part of the movie. It might be possible to come up with an alternate reading but there'd have to be some pretty good explanation to go with it.
66	** Besides having all the hallmarks of Munchausen's, there's also the fact that the little sister is growing ill - the mother has moved on to a secondary target. Had the ghost not sought Cole's help, or Cole not conquered his fear to help her, the mother would've continued harming her daughter, giving her an infinite supply of sympathy for the poor woman with one daughter dead and another sick. (Possibly consolation: With no further victims to move on to, it's unlikely she would've deliberately killed her - just kept her ill and miserable.)
67	** That was her mother? She might be a WickedStepmother.
68	*** The film doesn't say anything either way. But they did choose an actress who looked quite similar to Mischa Barton - shoulder-length blonde hair, angular jaw - so it's likely Shyamalan intended her to be the biological mother.
69	*** The script refers to her as 'Mrs Collins' and 'the girl's mother', so yes she is the biological mother.
70	*** Look at the sheer ''disbelief'' on the father's face as he realizes what he's watching. That's the look of a man who can barely accept that someone could harm their own child in such a way. Had his second wife murdered his daughter to whom she was unrelated in such a fashion, you'd think that ''anger'' would have predominated over shock.
71	*** Contrary to popular belief spread by fairy tales and today's "stranger danger" urban myth, children are much more likely to be hurt by their own parents, rather than a stepparent or a stranger; and parents (mostly mothers) afflicted with Munchausen's usually go after their own biological children.[[note]]90% of Amber alerts turn out to be a divorced-off parent leaving with their own child. And that's ''reported'' abductions -- including the ones that aren't even abductions, just Dad took little Susie for ice cream after the movie on custody night and they ran late and Mom panicked.[[/note]]
72	* At the end we can see Anna's breath because it gets cold when ghosts get mad. But was his character really angry? He was rather sad and wistful at the realization, and he gives a touching goodbye rather than getting angry and fighting the realization.
73	** Perhaps ''any'' strong emotion can cause a temperature drop, and anger / sadness are the most common for ghosts. So as he realizes he's a ghost the emotional shock makes the temperature drop.
74	** After finding out that you had been dead for a year and too much of a jackass to realize it, you'd probably be FURIOUS. Besides, emotions are almost never mutually exclusive, even in the weirdest combinations. One can be sad, wistful, and angry all at once. And more besides.
75	** Note that we have only Cole as a reference and in his case, he's encountered mostly the angry with a few nice ones. It might be true that any strong emotion would cause the chill effect and he just hadn't had the experience with it.
76	** It may be more a question of whether the ghosts are ''upset'' than whether they're angry. Cole just happens to be much more familiar with angry ghosts than with ones that are upset for other reasons. And the realization that you've been dead since the beginning of the movie has got to be upsetting.
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78	* Why is Cole encountering so many ghosts ''in his house''? The kid who'd been shot was the son of the abused lady, and the husband/father might have killed both of them. This makes sense, until you think about why the poisoned girl was there. She seemed to be seeking Cole out, which doesn't make sense if we accept that the ghosts don't know they're dead.
79	** The house is about 200 years old, by the look of it and the neighborhood it's in. The kid that accidentally blew his brains out while showing a friend his dad's gun had hair and clothing that indicated he was from the early 70's. The housewife that slit her wrists (apparently as a way to escape her husband), looked like she was from the 50's. Neither realize that decades have gone by, because of the strange time-sense. (Hence the ghost in the cupboard still protesting that he didn't steal the master's horse.)
80	** The poisoned girl probably ''did'' know she was dead, thanks to the tape. The boy is implied to have accidentally killed himself while showing off the shotgun to a friend, and the woman slit her wrists. One of the rules is that the ghosts see what they want to see, and maybe to them, the rest of the world is a blank slate, other than their place of death and Cole's house. Maybe they can sense and seek him out, just as he can to them. The woman talks to Cole as if he were her husband, but maybe she somehow sensed that Cole can see and hear her, and so she used him as an outlet, since her husband probably has no awareness of her ghost.
81	** Cole's gift makes him a WeirdnessMagnet.
82	*** Indeed. The ghosts are probably attracted to him, even if they don't know they're dead. Possibly ''because'' they don't know they're dead.
83	*** Ditto for when Crowe is listening to the old tapes of his sessions with Vincent, where he can hear the Spanish Ghost speaking to Vincent. Based off of LawOfAverages, this Troper suspects it would be highly unlikely that some Spanish man died in Crowe's office was at the time or where ever the session was being conducted.
84	** Ghosts were just drawn to Cole. It's stated the reason they're still hanging around is because they want his help - that's why they go to him (or to others who can see them, like Vincent). But they "only see what they want to see". They probably don't realise they ''have'' gone to him. The sick girl said to him "I'm feeling much better now"; she probably thought he was her father, or mother. The woman screamed at him as if he were her husband. It wasn't until Cole specifically said "Do you have something you want to tell me?" that the girl gave him the tape. They kind of know they want something off him, but in a subconscious way, and they don't know what. If they actually were fully aware that they were dead, at least ''one'' of them would have said "Hey, kid, can you give me a hand with this?" and made a conscious effort not to frighten him.
85	*** This. Most of the ghosts probably had no idea that Cole was a little boy and that they were scaring the living crap out of him. Even ''Malcolm'' may have only seen Cole as he really is because he'd already been assigned to be Cole's therapist shortly before he was shot, and may have known what the boy looked like from a photo or from having genuinely observed him at a distance.
86	** Didn't Cole's teacher mention that Philadelphia (their city) is one of the oldest parts of America, and most buildings have had previous uses? Like the schoolhouse. People may have died in their apartment before it became a home.
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88	* Why didn't Kyra give her father the videotape ''before'' she died? Was she just TooDumbToLive, or was there something else?
89	** That was likely the incident that killed her. She was "making a recovery", as we see in the tape, so the mother gives her a stronger dose of the stuff. She may not even have seen it before dying. Many speculate that watching the tape after death is what lead Kyra to realize she was, in fact, dead.
90	** Besides, a dead person asking a living person to avenge their death after the fact is a [[OlderThanDirt classic]] ghost story trope.
91	** She could have had the camera in her room because she knew that her mother (or step mother) was trying to kill her and wanted to catch her in the act hoping her dad would see it.
92	** It's implied she just liked to record her puppet shows. She heard her mother coming and she was supposed to be sick in bed, so she quickly put things away and hadn't enough time to turn the camera off before Mom barged in. The real question to be asked is how did she acquire that tape after dying? Even if she knew its contents would implicate her mother in her death after being made aware of it with Cole's help (since she knew the tape existed before her death), it doesn't really follow that she could just produce the tape as a real world object to Cole upon requesting the help her.
93	** We see a lot of tapes on her shelves, with little hearts and stuff. Filming her toy shows was a regular thing to her. She seems to have only meant to film her doll performance and then forgotten to turn it off. The camera ran as long as the tape held out, which was just barely long enough to provide evidence.
94	** The girl turned on the camera to record the puppet show, rushed to bed to avoid getting caught, left the camera on unwillingly and recorded her mother in flagrante delicto by accident and turned it off afterwards without realizing what it had filmed until after she died.
95	** Why would she be afraid to get caught playing with puppets? She probably realized her mother was kind and doting when she was ill, but might be cold and cruel if she saw her daughter apparently recovered enough to play and have fun.
96	** To answer the first question, her mother hid the poison from her and thus Kyra wouldn't have known until she watched the tape back. So we can assume she watched it later and died before she could tell her father (maybe he worked long hours and she didn't get the opportunity) or didn't realise until she was already dead.
97	** Plausible theories, all of the above. What defies all explanations, however, is that given all that, Kyra could somehow remain ignorant of her own death, as, pace Cole, ghosts do...
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99	* Another thing about Kyra: what the fuck was her (step?) mother giving her that six doctors over two years didn't notice? The bottle looked like it could have been cleaning solution, but... you'd think that would show up in a blood test or something. Or caused a more abrupt, ghastly death instead of prolonged illness.
100	** She might have been giving her several different things and even lying about symptoms.
101	** We only hear of the seven doctors from two people attending the funeral, not from the mom or dad. It might have been a lie she said earlier on that spread. For all we know she had never taken Kyra to the doctor or was counting school nurses and other medical staff who wouldn't be able to run those kind of tests as "doctors".
102	** It depends on how she was poisoning Kyra. Take ''Literature/FlowersInTheAttic'' where characters are poisoned over a few months by arsenic being added to their food. Perhaps she was giving her enough poison to make her feel poorly, but not enough to raise the doctors' suspicions. As said above, she was said to have been getting better before she died - and the mother gave her a bigger dose of poison.
103	** The mother doesn't have to have taken her to a doctor at all. She could have lied to her husband that she did or she just made a phonecall to ask about the symptoms and s/he said Kyra needed lots of bed rest.
104	** And the thing about poison is that it's rarely as effective as it is in the movies (PerfectPoison). Most poisons need to be applied in repeated doses over a period of time to have a lasting effect - the ones that kill at once are pretty hard to come by and dangerous to the one giving them too.
105	** It could have been something as simple as soap, which in a mild dosage would give Kyra an upset stomach. Even a natural cleaning solution wouldn't cause too much harm depending on how much of it she got. There are some cleaning solutions that, while you don't want to go around drinking them, won't do more than make your kidneys uncomfortable for a while.
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107	* How come Cole is so calm when meeting Malcolm for the first time when he's shown to be terrified of ghosts? He figured Malcolm was nice, but with the other ghosts he was scared from just sensing or seeing them, without them necessarily doing anything to him. Yet when Malcolm shows up he stays completely calm and has no trouble conversing with him (not counting his shy manner of speaking). Though if Cole had been shown to be frightened of him at first, the ending might have been given away...
108	** In general, the ghosts seem to see Cole as someone from their life based on whatever trauma is keeping them a ghost. It happens that what Crowe needs for closure is to help a child suffering like Vincent was. In other words, he was the only ghost that actually saw and interacted with Cole as what he was and tried to actually have a conversation.
109	** Crowe's wound wasn't visible, so he wasn't scary to look at. All the ghosts that scare Cole have been pretty horrible in appearance.
110	*** Why wasn't Crowe's wound visible? We could clearly see it after he got shot in the opening.
111	*** It was through and through and off to the side where it could be hidden by his jacket or arm or whatever. He bled out through his back.
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113	* Once you know the twist, the anniversary dinner scene briefly becomes {{Fridge Brilliance}} before you realize that it reduces to Malcolm's wife inexplicably booking a table at a fancy restaurant in order to sit and eat alone, getting upset in public about her dead husband and paying for the privilege.
114	** Some people continue the traditions started with dead loved ones even though it emotionally hurts.
115	** She wasn't getting angry at her husband. It seems like it before you know the twist, but after the big reveal it's clear she was feeling ''sad'' about [[spoiler:his death]]. Continuing to observe traditions you shared with a dead loved one is not uncommon. It's just a natural part of the grieving process in most cases.
116	** And really, what else would you expect her to do? Sit around the apartment ''where Malcolm died'' for their anniversary, where every room and possession reminds her of the life together that they've lost and the horror of his murder...? She probably just needed to get out of there to avoid spending most of the evening in tears.
117	** Maybe she was meeting a friend who was late or cancelled, which is why she's especially upset.
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119	* How did the voice of the Spanish-speaking ghost get recorded on the tape that Malcolm had of his appointment with Vincent? If ghosts can't be seen or heard by anyone with the exception of those with powers like Cole and Vincent, it doesn't make sense that their voices could be recorded, or at the very least, only those with powers should be able to hear the voice on the recording. If ghosts can be recorded, they surely would have been discovered by the general public given how they are everywhere and many of them are quite loud; you'd think plenty of people would have caught them in audio recordings over the years (or even possibly video - if their voices could be recorded, why not their bodies?). This seemed to me to be a very major plot hole, is there any explanation?
120	** It's a concept among ghost hunters called EVP (electronic voice phenomenon). Supposedly, the voices/energies of the dead can be recorded at extremely low volumes by electronic equipment, but it gets garbled into the static/white noise present in the recording (or may even BE the static, with innumerable overlapping voices creating nothing but noise). It's largely dismissed as a form of pareidolia (attribution of humanity to an inanimate or nonliving thing, the "seeing faces" mental illusion) or false positive in pattern recognition. Or in others words, finding what you want to be there. Compared to "real" examples present by paranormal enthusiasts, the Spanish speaker is remarkably discernible and clear. A somewhat goofy example of it was used in the film White Noise where it was a sort of conduit between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
121	** Possibly Malcolm was sensitive as well, to a much lesser degree, and didn't realize it.
122	*** Maybe that sensitivity came from the fact that by that time he was [[spoiler: himself a ghost]]. We only ever see Malcolm alone listen to that tape; it could be that an ordinary person wouldn't have been able to hear anything on it, no matter how patently they'd listen.
123	** Keep in mind that by the time Malcolm's giving Vincent's tapes another listen, Cole's told him about being able to see the dead. Malcolm is now specifically listening for ''something'' and has turned the volume up beyond his normal listening level. Once he hears a tiny something out of the ordinary, he turns the volume all the way up and finally hears the Spanish ghost that scares Vincent. There's also the fact that Lynn must have looked at photos of Cole numerous times and yet, never noticed the little Tinkerbell-ish light that represents a ghost in each and every one of them (right at which Cole is looking) until that point in the film where her son's issues are coming to a head. So ghosts are being recorded, but in such a subtle way that the average person just doesn't notice until they're looking for it. If they do notice it, it's explained away. More like, "Oh, they must have screwed up developing the pictures at the One Hour Photo," (because this was 1999 before everybody and their mom had a DSLR) or "Must be some extra noise or voices that accidentally got recorded or something." Something before people leap to "Must be ghosts."
124	* How come, if the rest of the ghosts don't see Cole as Cole (since the housewife sees her husband, Kyra likely sees her father, etc), Malcolm does? Why is he the only one to actually see Cole, the medium, as himself?
125	** This could imply a number of things, but noting is for sure. One, maybe he saw Cole before his death but didn't talk to him. Two, Cole doesn't actually look as he does on screen, but as a patient Malcolm wished he could help. Three, Cole was just some random kid Malcolm saw and, like the other ghosts, projected onto him what he still needed to do on Earth - not make up with his wife, but to realize he was dead and his career was over.
126	** Alternatively, all those ghosts needed closure from a specific person while Crowe needed closure from helping a child with a similar problem to his former patient and it didn't matter who that child was.
127	** Since it seems that Cole was a case on Crowe's waiting list before he got shot (notice Crowe has notes on Sear), Cole was part of Crowe´s unfinished business that troubled him (and related to his death given that Vincent was a similar case), so it would be consistent with the other ghosts´ behavior.
128	** Looks like the tropers above nailed it - regarding Cole specifically. What about all the other people though? Malcolm seems to be aware of their presence, unlike other ghosts...
129	* The TomatoInTheMirror moment seems a bit weird. Malcolm's wife drops a wedding ring, the camera shows that she's still wearing hers, and a close-up reveals that Malcolm... doesn't. But that makes perfect real-world sense if Malcolm just wasn't wearing his ring at the time. It seems that the reveal would've worked much better if he ''had'' been wearing his ring. The presence of three wedding rings makes no real-world sense, and could've clued Malcolm in that his own ring was part of his own fake ghostly form.
130	** There are lots of people who rarely or never take their wedding ring off, if Malcolm was one of them, no ring on his hand could have been the clue that something important happened. Besides, in Christian thought, a marriage lasts "´till death do them part", implying that no ring on Malcolm's hand meant that the marriage couldn't outlast his death.
131	** Ghosts see what they want to see and that scene was intended to show that he was finally capable of moving on. If he had seen his ring on his finger, that would have implied he still saw himself alive (and thus would never see the real ring) or still saw himself as married (and thus not ready to move on and probably censoring out the experience in his own head).
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133	* Whenever Cole is talking to Malcolm in public, wouldn't people who see him get suspicious/worried about a kid walking around talking to himself, and try to intervene somehow?
134	** They may not have been close enough to hear Cole talking to himself.
135	** Eh, some kid mumbling to themselves? SomebodyElsesProblem. Kids will do that.
136	** Maybe they see him and assume he's just playing make believe, since he does look quite young.
137	** They might even have thought that the kid had an imaginary friend or was not right in the head - still hardly a reason to personally intervene for someone not familiar with the situation unless it gets dangerous for someone (and it doesn't).
138	** Cole takes pains to avoid seeming crazy. When he meets Malcolm in his home with his mom, he glances around to make sure she can't hear, and speaks quietly so as to not be overheard. He rarely speaks to Malcolm in anything louder the a whisper so as not to arouse suspicion. In the "Stuttering Stanley" scene he glances around, almost seems to be listening before answering. Its only later in the film where he becomes more comfortable with the gift that he doesn't try as hard to hide his speaking.
139	* Who plays heavy metal music at a party for (presumably privileged/upper-middle class)9-year olds?
140	** Heavy metal? The song played at the party is "Head" by Tin Star, which is electronica.
141	* When Cole explains his problem to Malcolm, he says "I see dead people". And then at the end, in the flashback, he says "I see people". Though it was a small change, was there any significance to it?
142	** It's an artifact from an alternate take of the "I see dead people" scene that was not used in the movie.
143	* All the ghosts Cole sees other than Malcolm seem to be stuck in a loop in which they repeatedly relive the circumstances of their death. In fact, they seem almost oblivious to Cole's presence, apart from confusing him with the last person they saw before death and only saying things pertaining to that memory. You see this with the lady in the kitchen, the boy with the shot wound in the back of his head, and the vomiting girl. Why is Malcolm's behavior and interaction with Cole so different from any of that? ''Is'' he implied to doing that sort of behavior in front of Malcolm (such as repeating parts of his conversation with the young man who shot him), and we just never see it because it's supposed to represent Malcolm's perspective? And why do we never see another ghost having an ordinary conversation with Cole, the way Malcolm does numerous times throughout the film?
144	** My head canon for Malcom is that his work as a psychiatrist helped give him some awareness, if not total, of his predicament. He's used to reasoning things through and helping minds stuck in troubled feedback loops. And if Cole was referred to him shortly before Malcom died, it would be something for him to fixate on. As for other nice ghostly conversations, we don't see it, but we do hear about one. Cole has conversations with his grandmother. Also, it looks like he's having a nice conversation with the burned lady at the end before he goes out to do his part in the play.

Context Headscratchers / TheSixthSense