Scientific proof of the feeling of a ghostly presence is all in the mind

Remarkable research pinpointing the role of the brain in feeling the feeling that someone else is there.

link

Well the article is based on research conducted on persons with psychological or neurological disorders. Not the average healthy person who experiences a paranormal presence, but good find!

Ghosts exist only in the mind

All I needed to read of that article.

a reply to: Dr X

Without reading your link, one could argue the sensing human presence around you is also in your mind.

ummm, one could argue all of creation is in your mind... everything and nothing is real.

If you can't tell whether its a parrot or a green eagle don't look.
This supposed to be a new dictionary entry for esoteric?

a reply to: ckhk3

Well the article is based on research conducted on persons with psychological or neurological disorders.

Anyone who believes in the supernatural then...

i can only offer my personal viewpoint - but I have anecdotal evidence that :

when the " tour group " has no apriori knowledge -

a charismatic and eloquent guide can induce a guest to believe thiey have " experienced " a paranormal event - that fits the narrative supplied by the guide

when a guide who provides no primers to he alldged paranormal histry of a site -their guests rarly expeience paranormal activity

go figure

a reply to: wastedown

Exactly. We put all of our faith into a computer trapped inside a skull (while in complete darkness) to have the ability to interpret electrical and light impulses from sources as accurate without the use of any type of outside source of confirmation other than other brains in darkness using the exact same method to confirm our experience.

eta: come to think of it. That's pretty messed up

a reply to: FlySolo

We could go as far as to say that "proof" of anything is proof of nothing. Prove that you have hands. I mean really prove it. You can't just say that you have hands and wave them around saying "See!" All that I know is my brain is telling my perceived consciousness "yep, those are hands... He definitely has 'em", because a few sensors gathered information, and that is how I understand it. Electrical currents deciphered by grey protein goop to be a real physical world, is proof of nothing except grey protein goop is able to conduct electricity.

Everything and I mean EVERYTHING is all in your mind.

EM fields have long been known to cause all sorts of things, including that feeling of being watched. We produce our own EM Fields so I have always thought that would be the link to a 6th sense if you will. Some interesting things have been found in studies recently that point to the fact that we really can "feel" someone watching us.

A study of photons and DNA in a vacuum, found that strangely the photons seemed to gather around DNA strands sort of making a model that stayed there when the DNA was removed. I think residual hauntings could be explained by the right frequency of light in the right moment makes a recording of sorts.

Still, I'm of the mind that there can be multiple explanations to many phenomena. None of which can be applied to all situations or events. The Universe is just to big, and we know to little.

originally posted by: Dr X
Remarkable research pinpointing the role of the brain in feeling the feeling that someone else is there.

link

Based upon the definition of science:

the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

Clearly rules out the spiritual side of man making this a gross error.

Scientist who observe mankind based on science have been in error ever since scientist decided to rule out God which was easy by ruling out to ignore any supernatural event or presence because they can not see it, touch it, or analyze it. The world's greatest scientist is Satan (earlier named Lucifer) who helped in defining the definition of science.

This was a very cleaver trick which works VERY well today in fooling people into believing there is no such thing as the supernatural.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

Yeah god forbid you actually only talk about things you can physically prove and not just shoehorn things into existence with no evidence that they even exist. Lol at the "science is the creation of Satan" bit. That is the line of the willingly ignorant.

I guess you should thank Satan for that computer you are using to read these forums too. I mean after all science is responsible for inventing computers and science is the tool of the devil.

It's like when you're sleep deprived or really hungover - you go upstairs to the toilet at night, lights off, and get the fear, like someone is behind you. Easy to rationalise if you are mentally fit, harder to rationalise when you are an emotional wreck. I think that's the same thing the experiment is working on.

Whether this feeling is the same as the feeling people get when they say they are in the presence of the paranormal - I don't know.

Personal feelings, intuition if you will that can feel things from your soul can not be replicated in science. Not yet any way.

I know I have felt things around me from my soul that I know are there. Science has yet to come up with an answer.

Not yet though, not yet.

Spiro

I read the article, and call b.s. I've had two instances where I've had this feeling, and it sure as heck wasn't in my head. The first time was when I was a c.o. at a correctional facility. I was doing checks on a third shift. I was in the kitchen, all the lights were off, and all I had was my flashlight. I decided to take five, get a drink, and gaze out the window for a moment. That's when all the hair on the back of my neck suddenly stood on end. I had that feeling like someone was standing behind me next to the sink staring at me. I turned and looked in the direction towards the sink. The automated towel despenser decides to despense a towel out right above the sink I'm staring at. Either that was the biggest coincidence ever, or something was actually there setting off the motion sensor on the towel despenser. After I had that experience I shared it with some of my coworkers, and they had told me about others who had similar experiences in the kitchen. Story two. A restaurant that I cooked at served a full menu till two in the morning. So a lot of nights I would be on my own in the kitchen for long periods of time. I kept seeing things out of the corner of my eyes like people standing or walking by, but no one would be there. A couple months later one of the managers was training a new manager, and the three of us were walking out the door around 3:30 am. The trainee said something to the effect about how creepy the place was when all the lights were out. The manager told her wait till you see people walk by who aren't there. He freaked her out so bad she refused to take the position, but the manager confirmed what I had been going through for a while without me bringing it up to him first. I then asked him about his, and others experiences, and they matched my experiences to a "T". I am a sane person with no mental illnesses, neither were any coworkers at both places who I spoke to about this. There is more to this science (paranormal science about spirits that is) than we know about, or actually look into. But I do know what I saw, and have experienced, and I do know I'm not insane.

originally posted by: Atzil321
a reply to: ckhk3

Well the article is based on research conducted on persons with psychological or neurological disorders.

Anyone who believes in the supernatural then...

You couldn't be further from the truth with that ignorant statement. You really drive through life with your eyes sealed shut don't you! Sad, sad, sad!

Interesting article. Thanks for posting.

It's possible that the alteration of sensorimotor brain signals may be willingly induced by the subject, no mental illness required other than a heavy dose of faith and belief.

I've experienced a lot of 'things' myself, and I never trust my senses to give me the truth of what I'm experiencing. I don't trust my senses. I don't trust anyone elses either. Unfortunately, no one into the paranormal will give much credence to these sort of scientific experiments (artificially induced NDEs, for example). But the fact this is possible is telling. People get this sort of feeling a lot when a loved one has passed, often recently. They swear they feel their presence. It could be that grief creates a psychological issue that in turn creates the feeling of the deceased nearby, but in fact no such presence is really there. A sad possibility.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

Sure fine. Now explain to me where you got the evidence that a Satan even exists, let alone helped write the definition of science. Don't kick science just because it finds answers you don't like, and leave my digestion system out of this. It's irrelevant to the discussion.

originally posted by: Dr X
Remarkable research pinpointing the role of the brain in feeling the feeling that someone else is there.

link

With all due respect, I think this report is typical of the haughty, arrogant, condescending, superior and bombastic
attitude of many scientists.
I laud the fact that they're trying to understand schizophrenia. That's good.
When you read the comments by Giulio Rognini, the guy who led the study, it's ridiculous. It's utterly laughable.
He claims that ghost sightings can easily be explained away as misfiring neurons in the brain.
Typical know-it-all "scientist".

I have some friends who lived in an honest-to-goodness haunted house. On one occasion, six people, myself included
all heard loud footsteps walk up a flight of stairs and then across the upstairs floor. I guess our collective 'multisensory signal processing' faculties were all simultaneously misfiring.