Ghosts Explained

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Sandra Tsing Loh in today's "Loh-Down on Science" episode gives a short explaination of why people may feel a 'presence' when no one else is with them - it's all in their heads!

Article: http://www.lohdownonscience.org/podcast/brain-ghosts/

No surprises there - the more you know about the Human brain, particularly with regards to how it interprets things the eyes "see", the more Ghost "sightings" are very easily explained. The same applies to Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster etc etc....

Just wondering... Are there logical explanations for shared sightings?
For example if two (stressed/not intoxicated) people simultaneously see an old woman vanish through a closed door, is it similar to this "Neuroscientists in Switzerland were fascinated by mountain climbers’ reports. When exhausted, some climbers sense the presence of a ghostly companion."?

Often the reason 2 (or more) people see the same "Ghost" would be that the seed of what they might see has already been subconsciously planted; it's not surprising that, for example, people creeping around a supposedly haunted graveyard at night after hearing local stories of a shadowy figure of a murdered Nun that wanders around, peering at passers-by from behind the gravestones sometimes report seeing the same thing.

They're already aware of it, and so if they glimpse something out of the corner of their eye their brain hurries to "fill in the blank" with something, and surprise surprise it would be what they really wanted to see. It's the same explanation for why people see the Loch Ness Monster; they go to Loch Ness with images in their head already, driving past countless pictures, models and talking about the Monster and they're looking for it; so when a piece of driftwood bobs on the Loch surface in the distance, the brain creates the image. The person legitimately thinks they have seen Nessie, and would pass a lie detector, but, obviously, they haven't.

So a shared hallucination like this, stems from a subconscious seed.

Are you familiar with Derren Browne?
Derren Brown Investigates: The Ghosthunter
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... qAqMsIxtxd

I love Derren Brown, and watch anything he makes, I find it fascinating; particularly because he destroys and explains so many superstitions, beliefs and "supernatural" nonsense.

That's exactly what I was referring to. I remember seeing that Derren Brown thing a few years back, and is what I had in mind when typing my post.

With what we know about the Human Brain these days, it can definitely be said that just because you saw it, it doesn't mean that it was there . . .

Yes, he is a sharp individual, his unexplained tricks are impossible to figure out and retain the element of mystery, yet he disproves so many questionable phenomenon. Ive often wondered about his abilities/personality.

Also, memories are not necessarily accurate images of what you actually saw. A memory is not like a photograph taken at the time of when your eyes saw the object in question. They are a recollection of the last time you thought about the image; a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory etc etc . . . and if just after seeing 'something', your brain interprets that branch waving in the wind, or that fox darting behind a bush as a Victorian Ghost-child holding a headless dolly, then that becomes your genuine recollection of that image every time you "remember" it.

If there is someone else with you, and they're getting all excited saying "Sh!t did you see that?! It looked like a Monk waving a severed leg!" unsurprisingly, it's not much of a leap for the brain to create that image