Ghosts "All in the mind"?

[Zinkovich]

Ghosts 'all in the mind' From correspondents in Paris September 21, 2006 NEUROSCIENTISTS investigating a young woman with epilepsy believe they have stumbled on an explanation why some people feel a ghostly presence nearby or develop paranoia or persecution. The 22-year-old woman was being assessed for brain surgery for epilepsy but was otherwise psychologically healthy. Part of this evaluation was to pinpoint the area needed for surgery, using thin electrodes implanted into a region of the brain. Reporting the case in tomorrow's issue of Nature, the weekly British science journal, the doctors said that when they sent a small current to the woman's left temporoparietal junction, she said she had the impression there was somebody behind her. The person was a "shadow", young and of indeterminate sex and did not speak, she said. The doctors slightly increased the current and changed the woman's position from lying down to seated, and got her to hug her knees. She then said she felt the creepy presence of man who was also sitting and who was clasping her unpleasantly in his arms. The current was slightly increased further and the woman, this time seated, carried out a language test, reading from a card held in her right hand. She reported the presence of a sitting "person," this time displaced behind her to her right, who tried to interfere with the test. "He wants to take the card... he doesn't want me to read," she said. The sensation was so real that at no time did the woman realise that it was an illusion generated by her own mind, said the Swiss authors of the case sudy. The temporoparietal junction is used for social reasoning - to assess oneself and distinguish oneself from others. "Our findings may be a step towards understanding the mechanisms behind psychiatric manifestations such as paranoia, persecution and alien control," the authors said. Alien control is when someone attributes their acts to another person or source. It has been linked with hyperactivity in the temporoparietal cortex among people with schizophrenia. Previous research by the same team, led by Olaf Blanke of the Federal Polytechnic School in Lausanne, has associated this same region of the brain with the "out of body experience", the sensation of floating above one's body and looking down at oneself.

Ghosts 'all in the mind' | World Wide Weird | The Australian

I'll try to get my hands on the study tomorrow and elaborate further on it, but until then, let's discuss. Do any of you see any other implications to this study, either sociological or philosophical in nature? Do you think this is a finding that, if further explored and found meritous, would discredit a great deal of the paranormal "experiences" many claim to have?

[Chris]

The most convincing of the "haunting" series

A Haunting in Georgia (2002) (TV)

Its some kind of placed memories. I wont believe inghosts until I see one.

[Scribbler1]

That might work when you have electric stimuli, but it doesn't prove or disprove genuine "ghost" sightings.

It could be that you don't believe in it until you see one I suppose.

[ItsDarts]

Its been claimed that Paul (of the bible), Moses and Mohammed had epilepsy, and this could explain their visions of Jesus/God. IF this could be verified, then this could put all religious texts in the shredder.

"The religious prophets most often thought to have had epilepsy are Mohammad, Moses, and St. Paul. Dostoevsky, another famous epileptic whose works are filled with ecstatic visions of universal love (and terrible nightmares of uncanny fear and radical evil), thought it was obvious that Mohammad’s visions of God were triggered by epilepsy. "Mohammad assures us in this Koran that he had seen Paradise," Doestevsky notes. "He did not lie. He had indeed been in Paradise — during an attack of epilepsy, from which he suffered, as I do."

Source

[Nono]

Electric stimuli can also convince people that they are hearing things that aren't there, feeling things that aren't there, etc. etc. Should we therefore conclude that no one ever genuinely hears or feels anything?

I'd say the jury continues to be out on things like ghosts, and that any conclusions drawn from this are confusing the antenna with the message.

[RickSp]

As an athiest I do not believe in god because I have seen no evidence for the existence of a diety. Within that context I find ghosts to be very interesting. There is some evidence that something is going on here. What it is, is not clear. It may be nothing. The possibilities are intriguing.

The article cited is interesting but seems incomplete. It doesn't seem to address the site specific nature of most hauntings.

[Zinkovich]

I agree that there is a distinct possibility of some experiences being paranormal in nature, but I also think that this study further adds a physiological explanation for certain phenomona that before was not fully in play, due to a lack of specific operational data.

In other words: Ghosts might exist, but this study makes it less likely that all cases of hauntings are purely paranormal in nature.

[underbear1]

I don't know if ghosts exist, I try to have an open mind about the subject, but the study above where the brain is being stimulated, doesn't preclude the fact a ghost couldn't also have been present at the same time.

[Zinkovich]

Quote by: underbear1 I don't know if ghosts exist, I try to have an open mind about the subject, but the study above where the brain is being stimulated, doesn't preclude the fact a ghost couldn't also have been present at the same time.

But the ghost seemed to increase in severity of form and contact when stronger currents were applied to the subject's brain, which means one of two things:
1.) The part they were stimulating is what we use to "contact" ghosts, which coincidentally is the part o fthe brain suspected to be instrumental in disorders such as schizophrenia
2.)The part they were stimulating is the part that causes certain "paranormal" hallucinations, which coincidentally is the part of the brain suspected to be instrumental in disorders such as schizophrenia

Either way, the amount of current was directly linked to the effect, so this is something that warrants further study.

[Nono]

Since I've already posted what I want to say here, I'll just put in the link for that post:

Let's discuss death. (#51)

[RickSp]

The study reminds me of work done on "alien abductions" which suggests that a specific type of sleep disorder can cause many of the symptoms reported by "abductees".

What seems different, however, is that certain people report "abductions" whereas ghost sightings often seem tied to specific places. The sightings are often years apart by various individuals. It seems unlikely that these observers would suffer from the same type of schizophrenia which just happened to manifest itself in a specific house or building. Most accounts of ghosts feature haunted houses, not haunted people. It may be that conditions in the house might trigger specific observations, but that would still imply an external causation of some sort.

[Chris]

very odd, last night I was looking in the living room for my flashlight, in the dark, so I could shine it on that pesky annoying barking dog next door to get him to be quiet, and I heard a male voice -sounded like my Dad's say "Chris". It seemed to be in the same room as me, It scared the crap out of me. I probably was just hearing things though.

[Jack]

I see no reason to allow for a supernatural cause when it comes to ghosts after dismissing it in relation to gods. I don't accept anything as being beyond nature.

Having said that, I can't rule out that the mind is capable of amazing things science is still at a loss to explain. We've seen proof that it can cause a massive release of chemicals into the blood stream that allows a person of average build to lift a car off a trapped person. We have proof that a person can muster the courage and supress pain enough to cut off their own arm in order to free themselves from a rockslide. The brain is a wonderful organ, and still poorly understood by medicine and science. As we discover more, I can't help but think that we'll find explanations for many things like ghosts.

[Mia]

Quote by: Scribbler1 That might work when you have electric stimuli, but it doesn't prove or disprove genuine "ghost" sightings. It could be that you don't believe in it until you see one I suppose.

I didn't until I had my own ghost story. Now I worry everytime I move!!

Quote by: RickSp The study reminds me of work done on "alien abductions" which suggests that a specific type of sleep disorder can cause many of the symptoms reported by "abductees". What seems different, however, is that certain people report "abductions" whereas ghost sightings often seem tied to specific places. The sightings are often years apart by various individuals. It seems unlikely that these observers would suffer from the same type of schizophrenia which just happened to manifest itself in a specific house or building. Most accounts of ghosts feature haunted houses, not haunted people. It may be that conditions in the house might trigger specific observations, but that would still imply an external causation of some sort.

I stayed at a hotel on the official haunted places list. There are newspaper clippings and all sorts of stuff telling of the stories that led to the hauntings - there are children who died in a well, a woman who jumped off the roof, and I don't remember the other.

The place looks like The shining on the inside - the walls and mirrors and elevators.

The doorman gave me the whle tour and all the stories - children's faces appearing, invisible being playing with people's luggage....

I am a sucker and I was scared. I didn't have an experience until I took my friend there - we snuck up to the roof, which we were not supposed to be on. But the night doorman wasn't there and I wanted to give my friend the tour. We tried to go back down by elevator but it would not let us!

It kept closing the door, and then opening back up in the same place.

I went to sleep and my friend woke me yelling - saying there was a ghost. I said what does it look like? He said a child's face. I said 'Oh, it's just the kid fromt he well'

He had not even heard the story.

There is a guestbook downstairs for people to write their ghost stories.

[Nono]

Quote by: Isherwood I don't accept anything as being beyond nature.

Who says it's beyond nature? What pretention! You can't see infrared, for example, but that doesn't mean it ain't there. Do Higgs particles exist? Have we detected them? Etc. Etc.

How do you know that ghosts aren't some perfectly natural extension of the human psyche or life force?

[Jack]

Quote by: Nono How do you know that ghosts aren't some perfectly natural extension of the human psyche or life force?

I don't. Did you read the rest of my comment?

Quote by: Isherwood Having said that, I can't rule out that the mind is capable of amazing things science is still at a loss to explain.

[Nono]

OK, call it a question of how I interpreted your remark. I took it to mean "all in the mind".

[Jack]

I took it to mean "all in the mind".

Like a psychological disorder? No, that wasn't what I meant. I can even consider the possibility of auras as long as we look at them as a natural occurance. We know the body produces electomagnetic energy. And as you mentioned, we know we cannot, without specialized equipment, detect radio waves or certain wavelenghts of light with our 5 senses alone. So perhaps some people are able to "see" the electric field around a person's body. That possibility doesn't violate natural law.
Now when it comes to applying attributes to what's observed (Oh, your aura's blue, you must be...) we may well be crossing into pseudoscience.

[rez]

Quote by: Mia I stayed at a hotel on the official haunted places list. There are newspaper clippings and all sorts of stuff telling of the stories that led to the hauntings - there are children who died in a well, a woman who jumped off the roof, and I don't remember the other.

Why are all ghost stories like this? The way one dies should not have an effect as to whether or not they become a ghost. Who is to determine or judge the way someone dies?


as for the actual psychology experiment I find a number of things interesting. I no doubt associate the shadowy figure with the ID and ego. These two personalities, I believe, were the most dominate in the early human mind, but now have been supressed and controlled (or just masked moreso then before). A reason why I personally believe this is because I feel the symptoms (paranoia, persecution and alien control) were a way for humans to survive in reality.

[RickSp]

Quote by: rez Why are all ghost stories like this? The way one dies should not have an effect as to whether or not they become a ghost. Who is to determine or judge the way someone dies?

According to the stories, the means of death appears to be very important. Those who suffered violent and/or tragic death seem unwilling or unable to "cross-over" (to where ever one crosses over to.)

Or perhaps violent or tragic death just make better stories.