What kind of person sees ghosts?

[WIP]

From the good luck ending religion dept.: I noticed this entry on Epiphenomena, which has been recently posting articles from several studies comparing skeptics and religious-minded people. These findings indicate that a portion of the population has a high tendency to see hidden agents....which is about what ghosts would be. And the likelihood of seeing ghosts does not match up entirely with religious belief:

The human mind is naturally attuned to try to spot hidden agents. In fact, we're too good at it, because we tend to interpret all sorts of random environmental noise as actually being caused by someone.

It's widely thought that this tendency contributes to religious belief, and yet it's also the case that many religious people don't claim to have seen any spiritual agents directly at work - and many no-religious people see ghosts from time to time.....................................................

They found that, relative to other kinds of supernatural experiences, non-religious, supernatural agents (AKA ghosts) were more often seen when the environment was secluded, dark, quiet, and threatening. Those who had seen ghosts also reported being anxious or upset at the time. That wasn't the case for religious supernatural agents..........................................................

What this suggests is that anxiety and distress combine to make it more likely that people will see ghosts, but that this relationship doesn't hold for religious experiences.

It';s interesting to contrast this with

other research

showing that anxiety and uncertainty can make people see things that aren't there, and also that religion is more popular in environments that are threatening or dangerous.

Maybe turning to religion is one way to reduce the distress caused by supernatural experiences that are caused by threatening environments!

http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2013/02/what-kind-of-person-sees-ghosts.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BhaScienceGroup+%28Epiphenom%29

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the growth in unconventional or new age spirituality in Europe, that coincides with the decline in traditional religious beliefs? But it might indicate that someone who is quick to think there's a ghost in a dark room is not going to be happier as an atheist than when they believe their religion helps them deal with the ghost.

[segnosaur]

Actually there may be a scientific explanation behind many ghost sightings...

Infrasound.

This refers to very low frequency sounds (below 20 Hz). These sounds can be produced through things like malfunctioning fans, rattling pipes, etc. When humans are around those sounds, it can cause the eyeball to resonate at that frequency, which distorts the vision. The sound has also been known to cause a heightened sense of fear in individuals (probably a throwback to our evolutionary past, when those same sounds could have been produced by certain predators, but now tends to freak people out, making them more prone to panic and see things that aren't there.)

http://www.cracked.com/article_18828_the-creepy-scientific-explanation-behind-ghost-sightings.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound#Suggested_relationship_to_ghost_sightings

[Pliny]

What kind of person sees the physical universe? Is it the real illusion?

[WIP]

Actually there may be a scientific explanation behind many ghost sightings...

Infrasound.

This refers to very low frequency sounds (below 20 Hz). These sounds can be produced through things like malfunctioning fans, rattling pipes, etc. When humans are around those sounds, it can cause the eyeball to resonate at that frequency, which distorts the vision. The sound has also been known to cause a heightened sense of fear in individuals (probably a throwback to our evolutionary past, when those same sounds could have been produced by certain predators, but now tends to freak people out, making them more prone to panic and see things that aren't there.)

http://www.cracked.c...-sightings.html

http://en.wikipedia....ghost_sightings

I ought to check in on my own threads more often! Thanks for the links. I wonder if the sensitivity to low frequency sound might be part of the reason why ghost sightings are actually less frequent today than years ago. My father grew up on the South Shore of the Gaspe during the 1920's, when that area was still rural farmland with very few cars. Most people were still using horse&buggy even through the 30's. He often mentioned that he saw ghosts, as did everyone else down there when he was young.....haunted houses, ghosts in the woods, along the road, even a ghost ship...that likely every fisherman on the East Coast saw, since it was such a widely told and reported sighting. But, in his later years after he retired and would go down to visit the old people that were still alive there, he didn't hear many ghost stories from the younger people living there. That area of Gaspe isn't exactly busy by our standards today, but it's not the same as it would have been before cars, tourists, electricity etc..

The other story I wish I could find is a comment tossed off by Swiss neuroscientist - Olaf Blanke a few years ago, when he published a report on discovering that he could induce out-of-body experiences in one of his patients...a woman who suffered from epilepsy, by applying a low current electrical stimulation to the right angular gyrus region of the cortex -- which is now considered essential for maintaining our spatial sense, telling us that our consciousness is contained in our physical bodies....otherwise, disabling the right angular gyrus allows us to believe we are floating out of our bodies up towards the ceiling etc.. Anyway, the comment Blanke mentioned briefly was that stimulating the angular gyrus region on the left hemisphere....associated with our math and analytical thinking abilities....would induce a sensation of another "presence" in the room. Like another person was standing near the woman, but just behind her or out of range for her to see. It would be interesting to see if this part of the brain has some connection to ghost stories, but I couldn't find anything so I can only assume no one's bothered to do any research on it yet aside from the anecdotes.