![]() ![]() Information from the world bombards you as a mixed-up jumble of signals. That’s easier to believe than the idea that your brain is lying to you. If you see or feel the presence of a loved one who died - and trust your perceptions - then “it has to be a ghost,” says Smailes. So when experiencing a hallucination, our first instinct is usually to believe it. We’re used to our senses giving us accurate information about the world. But some may turn to ghosts as the explanation. He thinks that just about everyone has such experiences. He’s a psychologist in England at Northumbria University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These misperceptions also count as hallucinations, says David Smailes. Have you ever felt your phone buzz, then checked to find there was no message? Have you heard someone calling your name when no one was there? Have you ever seen a face or figure in a dark shadow? You don’t have to experience sleep paralysis to sense things that aren’t there. But in sleep paralysis, you wake up while it’s still happening. Your brain usually turns this paralysis off before you wake up. (That could get dangerous! Imagine flailing your arms and legs as you play dream basketball, only to whack your knuckles on the wall and tumble to the floor.) Most likely, that’s to prevent people from acting out their dreams. Though your eyes move, the rest of your body can’t. In this stage, your eyes dart around under their closed lids. It’s called rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep. He says this is why it happens: Our most vivid, lifelike dreams happen during a certain stage of sleep. A neuroscientist, he studies sleep paralysis at the University of Cambridge in England. Sleep paralysis “is like dreaming with your eyes open,” explains Baland Jalal. Sometimes, a person wakes up while still in this state. While dreaming in REM sleep, the body is usually paralyzed, unable to act out the motions the dreamer might see herself performing. Usually, you only start dreaming after you’re fully asleep. ![]() Sleep paralysis happens when the brain messes up the process of falling asleep or waking. He only saw something that one time, as a teenager. Sometimes, Dom hallucinated that creatures were walking or sitting on him. This is called a hallucination (Huh-LU-sih-NA-shun). ![]() He may also see, hear or feel figures or creatures that aren’t really there. He can’t move or speak or breathe deeply. This condition leaves someone feeling awake but paralyzed, or frozen in place. And he learned that science had a name for it: sleep paralysis. ‘Dreaming with your eyes open’ĭom began having unusual experiences when he was eight or nine. What their data show is that you can’t always trust your eyes, ears or brain. What scientists have discovered, though, are lots of reasons why people might feel they have had ghostly encounters. Not only are ghosts supposed to be able to do things that science says are impossible, such as turn invisible or pass through walls, but also scientists using reliable research methods have found zero evidence that ghosts exist. Ghosts are the least likely of many possible explanations. The rest only prove that equipment sometimes can capture noise, images or other signals that people don’t expect. However, none of these offer good evidence of ghosts. ![]() And numerous creepy photos and videos make it seem like ghosts exist. On ghost-hunting TV shows, people use scientific equipment to attempt to record or measure spirit activity. In 2018, 58 percent of those polled agreed with the statement, “Places can be haunted by spirits.” And almost one in five people from the United States said in another survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., that they’ve seen or been in the presence of a ghost. Chapman University in Orange, Calif., runs a yearly survey that asks people in the United States about their beliefs in the paranormal. But some people believe that ghosts are real. Ghost stories are lots of fun, especially on Halloween. Does this story make it seem like ghosts exist? Or is the glowing figure a flash of light that the camera accidentally captured? Clare Llewellyn-Bailey Other photos she took on that and later nights showed nothing unusual. One night, a big thud prompted her to grab her camera. “I’d been hearing noises on the ceiling at the same time each night,” says Clare Llewellyn-Bailey, who is now a student at the University of South Wales. ![]()
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