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Good Subscriber Account active since Shortcuts. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile. Log out. US Markets Loading H M S In the news. Tanya Lewis. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Stay up to date with what you want to know. 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.
Your brain is unwell 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. According to a survey in the International Journal of Applied and Basic Medical Research, at least 8 percent of the general population and around 30 percent of people with psychiatric illnesses have reported having one of these nighttime episodes at some point in their lives.
Many cultures even have a specific name for the ghoulish occurrence. In the early s, British engineer Vic Tandy was working in the research lab of a medical supply company when a strange feeling came over him. All at once he felt frigid and overwhelmed with a sense of impending doom.
As he paced around the room to calm down, he suddenly sensed an ethereal presence. Moments later, he was sure he saw a gray apparition in his peripheral view. When he whirled around, the specter was gone. The culprit turned out to be a fan that hummed at a rate of Well, Maybe a Little Click here to sign up for Scary Good Offers. Traveling in the next 7 days?
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