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If ghosts are hallucinations, why are mostly people seen?

Woomaster

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Hi.

A somewhat stupid question just came into my mind:
Many people who try to rationally explain 'ghost' sightings say that most of them are due to misperception or hallucinations. Undoubtly there are many sightings who could be explained as misperceptions, but there are also many cases where this explanation fails, because of a lack of a 'stimulus' a person could misinterpret. Someone who sees a 'ghost' standing in front of a white wall and then disappear, for example. In this cases a skeptic would say that the most likely explanation is a hallucination. I want to focus on this cases, where the best 'natural' explanation is a hallucination. Why -- and this is my (maybe silly) main question -- are mostly people (and on rare occasions animals) seen in this hallucinatory experiences and not ... ghost chairs or spooky computer ghosts or pink pig ghosts or ghostly landscapes or something like that?^^ If so many ghost sightings were due to hallucinations, wouldn't someone expect more weird sightings than just that of people who couldn't possibly be there? I myself never have had a hallucination for myself, so I don't know how it is to hallucinate, but many users of hallucinogenic drugs or something like that report very strange hallucinations, whereas the standard ghost sighting is in my view often not very spectacular? I really hope not to promote woo with this thread, but I find this question interesting.
 
Couple of points.

1) Often there is not enough detail in a report about a ghost sighting to really have an informed opinion on what the actual circumstances where.

2) Humans are "programmed" to spot other people using very little data.
 
I would add this:

When do many hallucinations occur?
When someone tries a new anti-depressant

When does someone start a new anti-depressant?
Right after someone very close dies.

When my FIL died in 2009, my MIL started taking an anti depressant, a few weeks later, hallucinations started. She of course thought they were ghosts.

She thought her husband was bringing them at night to show her. She thought he was standing outside her window. The hallucinations were also of Circus people, with freaky features, one was really tall, one was a fat clown on a string like a balloon. I tried to explain hallucinations, and how they happen when she is going to sleep, but she was adamant that they were ghosts.

I asked her to stop the meds, and the hallucinations stopped.

A few months later, we were cleaning out my FIL's closet, he was a professional commercial artist, and in his closet we found a stack of paintings he did of circus performers, some of which were very close to the descriptions of my MIL's hallucinations.

I'm pretty sure most hallucinations are intertwined with our subconscious memories. Similar to dreams, they incorporate stimuli which has been locked up in our minds for years in some cases. Of course someone who has lost somebody is going to be constantly thinking of that person, so I would think that many Anti-depressant related hallucinations are, in some form, related to that person.
 
Can I recommend a book? It's called Growing up with Lucy: How to build an Android in Twenty Easy steps. It's not really about androids but about how our brains work. Evidently there are all sorts of processes in our brains that are scanning our visual input and pre-processing it before it gets to our conscious awareness.

That's why when your driving along in poor light you suddenly think "There's a cat crossing the road!" Your pre-processing systems have identified danger, they switch your focus to the "cat" and then your conscious awareness goes "don't worry, it's actually just a paper bag."

I think some ghost sightings are a result of this sort of thing going on. Or something like that anyway. Although I was fascinated by the book, there was a lot that went clean over my head! :)
 
Also, check up on pareidolia: our brains are hard-wired to see human faces. Think of all the things that have been compared to human faces trhough history, that in reality have only the vaguest resemblence: Of cousre the numerous "Jesus on my toast" images, but even more famous things like the Man in the Moon (that doesn't really look much like a face).
 
Most of the things written off as hallucinations are not as vivid and defined as you see in the movies. It's more like indistinct shapes, visual anomalies in the field of vision, that are mistaken as resembling one thing or another. Vivid hallucinated objects are rare, even factoring in hallucinogens. It's easy to say someone saw something that wasn't real when you hear they were on drugs, but more than likely it was just mistaking something indistinct. Judgement is more effected than actual visions and people out of thin air appearing.

The drugs which induce other worlds and vivid objects are very specific and particular, deleriants like scopolamine, powerful hallucinogens like DMT. Things like LSD really only produce things like tracers, streaks and auras, colors and synesthesia. You don't see the things portrayed in fiction usually. People have exaggerated notions of how vivid and detailed hallucinations usually are.

It's because we are "wired" to recognize faces and people that often we mistake visual anomalies for those things.
 
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Because if someone saw a pig, or a talking computer, or something of that nature, they would know it was a hallucination because it does not fit in with the concept of " ghost".

So what we are left with is the people that happen to hallucinate, or misinterpret things as people shaped.

Pretty simple really.
 
People also 'see' UFOs and such, and I've heard of ghost animal sightings (not all THAT uncommon), as well as the occasional angel, fairy or elf sighting ...

We're imaginative animals, and sometimes that inagination gets the better of us.
 
I think there are two incorrect assumptions:

1) that a significant portion of ghost sightings are 'hallucinations' (as opposed to, say, pareidolia, imagination, fabrications)
2) that most ghost experiences are 'sightings'

The reality is that visual experiences are rare. The most common reports are "I felt a presence," "it got cold," "object moved when I wasn't watching it," "I heard a sound," "I smelled smoke/perfume/the ocean," &c. Visual sightings are very rare.

As for the visual sightings - I chalk most up to pareidoliaWP. People see human ghosts because we seem to be constructed to locate human forms in our visual space. Even when they're not there, apparently.
 
Woomaster said:
Hi.

A somewhat stupid question just came into my mind:
Many people who try to rationally explain 'ghost' sightings say that most of them are due to misperception or hallucinations. Undoubtly there are many sightings who could be explained as misperceptions, but there are also many cases where this explanation fails, because of a lack of a 'stimulus' a person could misinterpret. Someone who sees a 'ghost' standing in front of a white wall and then disappear, for example. In this cases a skeptic would say that the most likely explanation is a hallucination. I want to focus on this cases, where the best 'natural' explanation is a hallucination. Why -- and this is my (maybe silly) main question -- are mostly people (and on rare occasions animals) seen in this hallucinatory experiences and not ... ghost chairs or spooky computer ghosts or pink pig ghosts or ghostly landscapes or something like that?^^ If so many ghost sightings were due to hallucinations, wouldn't someone expect more weird sightings than just that of people who couldn't possibly be there? I myself never have had a hallucination for myself, so I don't know how it is to hallucinate, but many users of hallucinogenic drugs or something like that report very strange hallucinations, whereas the standard ghost sighting is in my view often not very spectacular? I really hope not to promote woo with this thread, but I find this question interesting.
Click to expand...

To add: I think cgordon has a good point. When the witness sees a fullsize floating person it's a ghost, but when it's a tiny floating person, they report seeing a fairy. If it doesn't look like a person, they report a UFO. If it's not translucent, they report a leprechaun. If it's a bear, it's not reported as a ghost bear, but as a 'spirit bear'. And so on.

And there are some spectres that are inanimate objects. Specifically, ghost ships and ghost trains. And the clothes and fashion accessories of the ghosts themselves. Murder weapons.
 
How does one recognise a ghost chair?
I know what a ghost train looks like, but that's about it. Ghost trees? Ghost rocks?
If 10% of the grains of sand on a beach were ghosts, would we notice?

People hallucinate. Mostly what they hallucinate , is people.
 
Soapy Sam said:
How does one recognise a ghost chair?
Click to expand...

Mostly defying physics. Floating, passing through walls or floors. Cannot be touched. Aflame but not warm or burning surroundings.

To complicate matters, a chair could merely be haunted by a ghost - as opposed to an actual spectral chair.



Soapy Sam said:
I know what a ghost train looks like, but that's about it. Ghost trees? Ghost rocks?
If 10% of the grains of sand on a beach were ghosts, would we notice?

People hallucinate. Mostly what they hallucinate , is people.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure this is not true. Most hallucinations seem to be very generalized. ie: hallucinating that everything is a movie set, or that one is flying through the landscape instead of walking, or that the colour blue is especially angry today.
 
Also, I would suggest that most "ghost sightings" do not involve sight. It's a creaking sound or a cold spot or something moved or an "electronic voice phenomenon," or the dog acts funny or an appliance turns on. None of these involve seeing a person and yet these seem to be the most common ghost manifestations. Seeing a translucent human being seems to be extremely rare.

Ward
 
wardenclyffe said:
Also, I would suggest that most "ghost sightings" do not involve sight. It's a creaking sound or a cold spot or something moved or an "electronic voice phenomenon," or the dog acts funny or an appliance turns on. None of these involve seeing a person and yet these seem to be the most common ghost manifestations. Seeing a translucent human being seems to be extremely rare.

Ward
Click to expand...

It would be worth trying to find out if manifestations have been inventoried anywhere. Alternatively, a sampling of report databases would be interesting.

There will be some quibbling over inclusion criteria. eg: when a medium contacts an informer type spirit... is this a ghost experience if the spirit is "communicating from the other side" and not manifesting locally?

I read a few years ago, that sentient manifestations were rarely people. Horses were the most common, followed by dogs and slugs. Humans were fourth most common.

Taking random stabs through my ghost texts just now, I get the impression that reporting of non-human manifestations has declined over the last century. Also a higher reporting of what would be called spectres vs manifestations.

Just to clarify that last part: if your deceased wife is visiting you, plain as day (not floating, not glowing or translucent) it's a manifestation, but not a spectre. These were a much more common experience a century ago. Dead son comes to visit and they play chess for a few hours. That sort of thing.
 
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sadhatter said:
Because if someone saw a pig, or a talking computer, or something of that nature, they would know it was a hallucination because it does not fit in with the concept of " ghost".

So what we are left with is the people that happen to hallucinate, or misinterpret things as people shaped.

Pretty simple really.
Click to expand...

The ghost pig union wishes to speak to you...
 
LTC8K6 said:
The ghost pig union wishes to speak to you...
Click to expand...

To be fair, i thought my apartment was haunted by a ghost cat 5-6 years back. Turns out a female friend of a friend who lived in the same building lost a large white ferret and it chose my home as its base to wander the apartment buildings.
 
I wouldn't necessarily claim 'hallucination' for ghost stories of the calibre being described - in part because I've never heard of anyone having such a complicated spectral claim outside of crappy movies and, of course, bad reality television, where people have a reason to confabulate.

But, try this on for size...

As you are falling asleep, you see a shadowy something or other pass by your door. You bolt upright in bed and look straight over there, and it's gone. Now, we've evolved to freak out over predators, or perceived threats. The most threatening thing you could see passing by your door? A person. Maybe if we were surrounded by saber toothed tigers we'd see something else.
 
I wonder sometimes if the fear causes the vision? Noises out of place, someone scared, then more noise makes them terrified, isn't that a situation ripe for confusion?
I have been so scared of noise that I could hear noises from inside my body! Other people would feel those noises were not from them.The difference is I thought the noises that woke me where human (burglar) not ghosts.
 
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