The Creepy Scientific Explanation Behind Ghost Sightings

[JamesG]

 

 

 

I always found that odd and hard to explain

Humans, like most animals, are pattern seekers. IMHO, it's this that best explains why so many believe in ghosts. We also tend to attach intent to random events and we are susceptible to phenomena such as sleep paralysis. I once experienced sleep paralysis where I saw two large green eyes spaced about 9 inches apart at a level above my bed that would have been about 7-8 feet tall. It seemed very real at the time. It was only years later when I learned about the phenomena that it all made sense. At the time I was an xian and thought it was a demon.

 

 

Well when you put it in those terms, everything we see, believe and understand could be sleep paralysis. Don't you ever think to apply some kind of criteria to distinguish between what is purely in the mind and what is not?

 

I tend to think when I'm not in the state of semi conscious sleep and I see commonplace phenomena that it might just perhaps be commonplace phenomena. Call me crazy, but I don't demand extraordinary evidence for ordinary experiences.

 

Crazy  now   

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

 

You're evidently the one who a) makes unfounded assumptions and  can't, in any case, express them in any such way as to form a cogent argument.

 

I think the best thing about trolls is their flair for irony.

 

Tell me about it XD

 

 

I always found that odd and hard to explain

Humans, like most animals, are pattern seekers. IMHO, it's this that best explains why so many believe in ghosts. We also tend to attach intent to random events and we are susceptible to phenomena such as sleep paralysis. I once experienced sleep paralysis where I saw two large green eyes spaced about 9 inches apart at a level above my bed that would have been about 7-8 feet tall. It seemed very real at the time. It was only years later when I learned about the phenomena that it all made sense. At the time I was an xian and thought it was a demon.

 

True. Also, one of my more vivid ghost encounters was a woman in a niqab, during sleep paralysis. She was talking to me about my future wife. It was quite bizarre. She was telling me to go save my wife. The fact that it mimics things that are familiar to my culture (and almost parallels a ghost story I've heard a long while back on the scifi channel Beyond Belief), is evidence enough that it isn't just a ghost talking to me during sleep paralysis

 

That must've been scary though. I've seen blue heads in my closet when I was seven during that. It was creepy.

 

I used to think the woman talking about my wife was my goddess when I was pagan. Also, I tried astral projection to find that its just where you induce sleep paralysis and then lucid dream. I was always wondering why I couldn't do it, why I'd always just fall asleep as a pagan. Now I know.... XD

 

I agree though, we are pattern seekers. And we do often ascribe intent where there is none. Though this is very useful evolutionarily, because most things you dealt with had an intent. You were all trying to outcompete and outsurvive eachother. So we all developed the ability to sense sentience and intent. Sometimes, we misplace those and interpret them in things that lack them.

[Joshpantera]

So what about Resurrection Mary?

 

Explained? 

[kolaida]

Sweet. I've been wondering what all these people have seen/heard because I knew it sure wasn't an actual ghost. A lot of people DO claim to see/hear something, though. And I believe THEY believe they really saw it. I just don't believe their interpretation of the events are correct. 

 

I think I stopped worrying about ghosts (and demons) back in '06 when I worked at Yellowstone for a summer.  One night my employee roommate and I were walking around a trail, I got a suuuuuuper creepy, get the hell outta here feeling, heard nearby crunching of pine needles on the ground coming towards us.  I started pushing my roommate some until she complained I was going to push her into the river we were walking by (I was closer to the mountainous area).  Suddenly, a real sense of horror overcame me, I looked at her, yelled "RUN" and took off like a bat out of hell to our dorm without looking back.  She was freaking out because she really believed in ghosts but knew I didn't really believe in them.

 

The next day at work, all the employees were warned not to go in that area late or alone because some freaking psycho wanted by the FBI was hiding there. He'd blown up his wife and two kids at his house and had taken to hiding in the Park, but they were keeping it under wraps so as not to cause panic since they suspected he was blending as a tourist (he'd been there for a couple days already; I was mad they didn't say before!). 

 

After that, I pretty much officially lost what little interest I'd had in the paranormal. That particular roommate still dragged me out a couple "ghosts hunts" though-- even after that. 

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

Wow Kolaida... That must've been scary. Perhaps you heard him?

[kolaida]

Wow Kolaida... That must've been scary. Perhaps you heard him?

 

Well, I was pretty sure  I was hearing heavy footsteps and got a reallllly bad feeling at about the same time. I always thought it was weird that my roommate didn't hear anything or feel anything. She thought I was crazy and imagining things until the next morning when we went in for work and saw the warnings and had a little speech about it. It was something. It definitely made me realize I needed to be more worried about living people, lol! 

[owen652]

'Paranormality' by Richard Wiseman is a book that deals with questions like this very effectively and is a great read.