Absolutely, says Joe Nickell, a senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, an organization that promotes scientific inquiry and critical investigation of paranormal and other extraordinary claims. Ghostly sightings can also be brought on as a result of a psychotic state, drug use, sleep deprivation or temporal lobe epilepsy. Others have, however. In , the American Journal of Ophthalmology published a case study involving a couple who moved into a house and promptly began to suffer headaches, listlessness and strange auditory and visual hallucinations footsteps, mysterious figures, strange sensations, etc.
Their symptoms were finally traced to a faulty furnace. On the other hand, it's possible that even if ghosts don't experience temperature themselves, they could emit a certain energy that changes the way we are living beings experience temperature. And not because your phone's old or you keep forgetting to place it on the charger. The same rule applies to all of your electronics.
The theory behind this, Pennace explains, is that spirits try to absorb whatever energy is around them, and your tech is a prime source. It's a topic Doug Hogate Jr. Ghosts are thought to communicate through electricity like turning the lights on and off for similar reasons It's all fun and games until your resident ghost starts running up your electric bill.
Again, this is where Pennace's team tries to debunk first: "Do you have a rodent problem? A raccoon in your chimney? They could get in and out, and you'd never know," she explains. What Pennace looks for is the frequency of the noises and the type of sound. Anything that's out of the ordinary is worth investigating. She cites one building the society examined in Staten Island, where the entire team heard the sound of footsteps, even though no one else was there.
The noise kept happening throughout the night, eventually hitting a point where it sounded like someone was charging at them, full-speed—sending a Subway footlong wrapper flying as the sound "passed" that spot—only to stop abruptly the second it seemed like the invisible intruder was about to collide with them. It was very odd. Don't worry—if that sentence just instantly sent a chill up your spine, that's probably just because it's a creepy thought, not because a ghost jumped through the screen and clung to your neck.
But if you are experiencing all of the above, and you consistently feel like there's something on the back of your neck, Mayhan says you may want to reach out to a spiritual healer of some kind, as it can indicate that a ghost "attached" to you. Unfamiliar and threatening environments kick our survival instincts up a notch.
Ghost tours capitalize on this hereditary paranoia by forcing the mind to wrestle with ambiguity. The uncertainty itself drives up the fear factor. Even quirks of architecture can trigger this primitive terror: In , British geographer Jay Appleton found that, when it comes to our habitats, humans tend to think of places as safe when they offer two things: prospect a clear view of the outside world and refuge the opportunity to hide from danger.
Research suggests that the brain may summon spirits as a means of coping with trauma, especially the pain of losing a loved one. One survey in the British Medical Journal found that close to half the widows in Wales and England had seen their mates postmortem.
Experts think that such specters help us deal with painful or confusing events. A analysis published in the journal Death Studies looked at hundreds of incidents of supposed interaction with the deceased. Studies suggest kids who are bullied or exposed to dangerous situations are more likely to have paranormal fantasies, a trend psychologists also found in adults with a history of childhood trauma.
In a survey in The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research , 91 percent of participants said their encounter had at least one upside, such as a sense of connection to others. So if you do see a shroud down the hallway, you might not want to run. Ghostly occurrences can be the result of larger problems in our gray matter.
For some, hearing voices or experiencing a vision can be an early indicator of medical conditions such as schizophrenia. Some evidence even suggests that people with underlying brain disorders tend to have paranormal confrontations that are more intense and negative than the average brush with the beyond.
Even in those without mental illness, temporary changes in brain activity can lead to run-ins with wraiths. People who experiment with psychoactive drugs like LSD and magic mushrooms frequently report spiritual fantasies. Furthermore, psychiatrists have deemed many visions the result of sleep paralysis, a poorly understood condition in which the afflicted wake up and find themselves unable to move.
Scientists have yet to pinpoint the roots of this phenomenon, but some think it occurs when the brain crosses wires between conscious awareness and the dream-filled REM stage of slumber. Unlikely as it might seem in the cold light of day, ghosts and hauntings are a mainstream area of belief.
Belief in ghosts also appears to be global, with most if not all cultures around the world having some widely accepted kind of ghosts. The existence of a ghost as an incorporeal bodyless soul or spirit of a dead person or animal is contrary to the laws of nature as we understand them, so it seems there is something here that calls for explanation.
We can look at the worlds of literature, philosophy and anthropology for some of the reasons why people are so keen to believe. The desire for justice and the belief in some form of supernatural protection which we see in more major religions address basic human needs.
Ghosts have long been thought of as vehicles for justice. In Macbeth, meanwhile, the murdered Banquo points an accusing finger at the man responsible for his death. This idea has its equivalents today in various countries. In Kenya, a murdered person may become an ngoma , a spirit who pursues their murderer, sometimes causing them to give themself up to the police.
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