Are Ghosts Real? Ghosts Do Exist?

Stories about ghosts appear from life, to movies, or novels. But are ghosts real?

Who Believes in Ghost?

If you believe in the existence of ghost, you're probably not the only one.

Many cultures around the world believe, and even build on the story of souls surviving death, then existing in another "realm". In fact, ghosts are one of the most widely believed paranormal phenomena in the world, with millions of people believing that ghosts are real.

A 2019 Ipsos poll found that 46% of Americans said they truly believe in the existence of ghosts. Of these, 18% said they had seen ghosts or had encountered ghosts.

The idea that the dead are still with us in spirit is an ancient one, appearing in countless stories, including the Bible, and even a genre of folk literature: ghost stories. . Belief in ghosts is part of a larger network of related paranormal beliefs, including near-death experiences, life after death, and spiritual communication. Faith brings comfort to many people.

So, what is the devil from a scientific perspective?

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Ghost in History

For centuries, people have attempted to communicate with spirits. Upper-class ladies in Victorian England, for example, held parties in their drawing rooms after tea and outings with friends. Ghost clubs dedicated to the search for ghostly evidence were established at prestigious universities such as Cambridge and Oxford, and the Society for Psychical Research, the most prominent organization, was founded in 1882.

Many psychics claimed to be able to communicate with the dead in America in the late 1800s, but were later exposed as frauds by skeptical investigators such as Harry Houdini.

It wasn't until recently that ghost hunting became a popular pastime all over the world. Much of this can be attributed to the popular Syfy cable TV show "Ghost Hunters," which has aired 230 episodes and found no real evidence of ghosts.

The show has spawned dozens of spin-offs and imitators, and it's easy to see why: the premise is that anyone can go ghost hunting. The two original stars were regular people (plumbers, in fact) who decided to look for evidence of ghosts. Their message is that you don't have to be a scientist or have any scientific or investigative training. All you need is some free time, a dark location, and possibly a few electronics store gadgets. Any unexplained lights or noises could be evidence of ghosts if you look long enough.

Because of the ambiguity of the criteria for ghostly occurrences, afterlife myths are more vivid than ever.

Science Seeks Answers: Are Ghosts Real?

Strange, surprising, and unexplainable phenomena can occur at any time in human history, or even in a person's life.

One difficulty in scientifically assessing ghosts is that there are many surprising phenomena attributed to ghosts, such as doors that close on their own, lost keys, cold areas in hallways, and the spirits of a relative who has died.

They can be as simple as a door closing on its own, an object disappearing, a location suddenly changing temperature, or the image of a deceased relative appearing in front of your eyes.

As a result, assessing the existence of demons from a scientific standpoint is always fraught with difficulties.

Many phenomena are misunderstood as being caused by demonic influence, according to Professor Stephen Hupp, a clinical psychologist at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, USA.

Sleep paralysis, or sleep paralysis, is one of them. It is a scientifically validated and recognized experience. People believed that this phenomenon was haunted by ghosts or demons before science discovered it.

Furthermore, the concept of ghosts contains numerous inherent contradictions. For instance, are ghosts real or not? Can they traverse solid objects?

Based on logic and basic physical laws, it appears that the image of demons (if they exist) contradicts everything we have ever known. For example, if ghosts are human souls, why do they wear clothes and appear with inanimate objects like hats, sticks, and dresses...

Or, if ghosts can communicate with humans, why don't murdered people's souls find a way to report the crime, find the perpetrator, or exonerate someone?

Few scientific topics deal with ghosts because there are so many competing underlying theories. However, science does not rule out the existence of demons and souls.

On the contrary, many statements claim that demons exist; however, if they cannot be detected or appear in some form for us to see, then all pictures, videos, sounds... cannot be considered evidence of ghosts. In other words, ghosts are a topic on which science cannot provide an answer.

Many people who have been recorded as having had a ghostly experience have not necessarily seen anything that most people would recognize as a classic "ghost," and they may have had completely different experiences with the only thing in common being that it could not be explained easily.

Personal experience is one thing, but scientific evidence is something entirely different. One of the challenges of investigating ghosts is that there is no universally accepted definition of what a ghost is. Some believe that ghosts are the souls of people who have died for whatever reason who become "lost" on their way to the afterlife; others believe that ghosts are telepathic entities projected into the world from our minds.

Ideas about ghosts contain numerous inherent contradictions. Do ghosts, for example, have any significance? They have the ability to move through solid objects without disturbing them, as well as slam doors and throw objects around the room. It is either one or the other, according to logic and physical laws. If ghosts are human souls, why do they appear dressed and with inanimate (presumably lifeless) objects like hats, canes, and dresses, not to mention the numerous reports of ghost trains, cars, and carriages?

Why are there still unsolved murders if ghosts are the souls of those who died without being rescued? Ghosts are said to communicate with spiritual mediums and can identify their killers. for the cops? The questions go on and on - almost any claim about a ghost provides reasonable grounds for doubt.

Ghost hunters employ a variety of creative (and dubious) methods to detect the presence of spirits, which frequently include psychics. Almost all ghost hunters regard themselves as scientists, and most give the impression that they do because they use high-tech scientific equipment such as Geiger counters, Electromagnetic Field (EMF) detectors, ion detectors, infrared cameras, and sensitive microphones. However, none of these devices has been shown to detect ghosts. For centuries, people believed that when ghosts were present, flames turned blue. Few people believe that legend nowadays, but it is likely that many of the signs considered by today's ghost hunters were false and centuries old.

Other researchers argue that the lack of proof for ghosts is due to a lack of technology to locate or detect the spirit world. This, however, cannot be correct: Ghosts exist and manifest in our everyday physical world (and thus can be detected and recorded in photographs, films, videos, and audio recordings).

We should have solid evidence of ghosts if they existed and could be discovered or recorded scientifically, but we don't. If ghosts exist but cannot be detected or recorded scientifically, then all of the photos, videos, audio, and other recordings that are claimed to be evidence of ghosts cannot be ghosts. With so many fundamentally contradictory theories and so little science to back them up.

And, of course, with the recent release of "ghost apps" for smartphones, it's now easier than ever to create eerie images and share them on social media. Making it even more difficult for ghost researchers to distinguish between fact and fiction.

Why Do We Believe that Ghosts Exist?

There is a strange syndrome that makes us see faces, or human figures appearing in the clouds, in the bushes, or inside a dark house (Photo: Getty Images).

According to Professor Stephen Hupp, pareidolia syndrome is a common cause of belief in ghosts. This is a syndrome in which people tend to perceive (or impose) a valid explanation on an ambiguous image, transforming it into an object, a pattern, or carrying a specific meaning.

Faces or human figures appearing in the clouds, bushes, or inside a dark house is a common example. Furthermore, belief in the spirit world can be a psychological response.

"This universe still has a lot of things we don't understand, and some people may feel comfortable filling that gap with explanations about the supernatural world," the professor said.

"Supernatural explanations are often offered with confidence, even in the absence of actual evidence, and this confidence can give a false sense of reality."

If ghosts were real and were some kind of unknown energy or entity, their existence (like all other scientific discoveries) would be discovered and discovered by scientists. Controlled experiments were used to confirm the findings.

"The last thing you want to hear about ghosts is their existence according to someone's story, but there is no scientific evidence," Professor Stephen Hupp concludes.

Ghosts Sprout from Faith

Ghosts Do Exist

Not everyone who believes in the existence of ghosts has actually seen one. However, the majority of them have seen ghost movies, read ghost stories, and heard ghost stories.

How many horror series have you seen, ranging from The Conjuring to Annabelle, The Nun, and The Ring? Even in the absence of multi-million dollar films, the idea of ghosts exists in our minds from a very young age, as evidenced by the stories your parents told you to keep you from going out at night. night.

When we are not conscious or have sharp arguments to refute it, the belief that ghosts are real is planted in the young minds of each child.

And once ingrained in the subconscious, a belief becomes absolute and unconditional. You will grow up with that belief until you are mature enough to doubt and question its veracity.

According to market research firm YouGov, nearly half of the population in the United States today believes in ghosts. 13% of these people believe in bloodsucking vampires. When we hear a creaking floorboard or feel a sudden chill, this belief takes over our minds.

Psychologists at the University of Illinois conducted an experiment in 1990. They enlisted the help of two groups of volunteers for a tour of the long-abandoned Lincoln Square Theater.

For the first group, scientists installed a tour guide who informed them that the theater was haunted. The second group was led by a neutral tour guide who avoided discussing ghosts.

The findings revealed that visitors in the first group were more likely to report fear and strange fantasies.

"We tend to be this way because we are a strongly associative creature," says Chris French, head of Goldsmiths' Abnormal Psychology Research Unit.

Humans have evolved to use all of our senses to gather information from the outside world. We learn to be extremely vigilant in order to detect and avoid threats such as predators.

When our sensory system is overworked, it extracts what we don't see, what isn't real, and convinces us that it is. Suddenly, ghosts began to emerge from random noises or blurry images.

According to French, there is a scientific term for this phenomenon. It's called "pareidolia," and it occurs when people believe they have recorded ghosts speaking. However, it is simply background noise in open space.

Many Western psychics or ghost hunters commit fraud by taking advantage of the "pareidolia" mentality. They purposefully draw the person's attention to a specific phrase. Wait for the person's brain to recognize a similar sound among the random noise.

So it is possible to persuade them of the existence of ghosts.

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You Need Ghosts for Companionship

According to psychological studies, some people who are experiencing psychological trauma, particularly the pain of losing a loved one, can "summon" their spirits to talk to and comfort themselves.

Just as most amputees report the "phantom limb," the sensation that their missing limb is still present, surviving spouses frequently report seeing or sensing their deceased partner.

According to a 1971 survey published in the British Medical Journal, nearly half of widows in Wales and England had encountered the spirit of their deceased husbands. These encounters are almost lifelike in their vividness.

Psychologists refer to it as "after-death communication" and consider it to be one of the most common paranormal experiences, affecting both spiritual believers and non-believers.

A study published in the journal Death Studies in 2011 looked at hundreds of cases of living people interacting with the deceased. According to the authors, these ghosts are frequently imagined by living people in order to cope with traumatic events.

Death, however, is not the only reason for a friendly encounter with ghosts. According to some studies, children who are bullied or exposed to dangerous situations are more likely to fantasize about magical creatures. This pattern is also seen in adults who have experienced childhood trauma.

Your Brain Is Not Healthy

With the aforementioned causes, we can conclude that the majority of ghost sightings are caused by a temporary psychological problem. However, there are cases where a person sees ghosts more frequently and hears the voices of spirits who are relentlessly pursuing them.

According to research, this can be an early sign of a medical condition such as schizophrenia. According to some evidence, people who have underlying brain disorders are more likely to experience intense and negative paranormal phenomena.

Even in people who are not mentally ill, temporary changes in brain activity can cause ghosts to appear. Users of psychoactive substances such as LSD and magic mushrooms, for example, frequently report spiritual fantasies.

People are sometimes unintentionally exposed to these psychoactive substances through spores or mold in abandoned houses. This explains why these places are frequently referred to as haunted.

When you wake up in another state known as sleep paralysis and find your body unable to move, you are likely to encounter strange ghostly phenomena.

People suffering from sleep paralysis, for example, frequently experience the sensation of being swept into another space, seeing themselves floating, drifting, or even separated from their physical body. They frequently see a soul sitting on their chest.

Scientists are still trying to figure out what causes this phenomenon, but some believe it happens when the brain alternates between sleep and wakefulness.

Specifically, during REM sleep, your motor nervous system is turned off, and you are unable to move to avoid sleepwalking or self-harm. If you wake up and your brain does not activate the motor nervous system, you will be unable to move.

This situation causes you to panic, possibly because you believe you are dead. Brain signals can then randomly overlap, resulting in mysterious ghostly phenomena.

Final Thoughts

If ghosts were real and were some unknown form of energy or entity, then their existence (like all other scientific discoveries) would be discovered and verified by scientists through controlled experiments - not by weekend ghost hunters wandering around dark abandoned houses at night with cameras and flashlights.

Finally, despite mountains of hazy images, audio, and video, the evidence of ghosts today is no better than it was a century ago. There are two possible explanations for why ghost hunters fail to find conclusive evidence. The first is that ghosts do not exist, and ghost sightings can be explained by psychology, misunderstandings, mistakes, and hoaxes. The second possibility is that ghosts do exist, but ghost hunters lack the scientific tools and thinking required to unearth any meaningful evidence.

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