Have You Ever Felt Ghostly Presences?
Do you believe in ghostly presences? You may have heard that ghosts only exist inside our heads . From a scientific point of view, this is true. Although, of course, those who are believers in some religion or sect will say that it is a lie, that ghosts really exist, that they are as real as people of flesh and blood.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the world have felt ghostly presences. The feeling is intuitive. You are there and you could swear that there is “someone” by your side. Or suddenly you feel that someone is watching you, even though there is nothing around you. Sometimes it is a kind experience, like being looked after. Other times the situation causes you fear or anguish.
It is also known to people in extreme situations who have experienced this type. For example, the mountaineer Reinhold Messner reported that during one of his trips through the Himalayas he had symptoms of frostbite. He was going with his brother, but from one moment to the next he felt that a third party was accompanying them. It was very vivid, although he did not see the presence.
He is not the only mountaineer who has had something like this happen to him. It is also common in people living in extreme survival situations and in widowers. Well, a group of researchers from the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Switzerland) undertook the task of studying the phenomenon and has made great strides in this regard.
The ghostly presences in the brain
The researchers found that a large group of people with neurological problems reported having felt ghostly presences near them. For this reason, the first thing they did was do an MRI on a group of epilepsy patients who claimed to have had several experiences of this type.
The group of researchers detected that there were three brain regions involved in the perception of ghostly presences. These areas were the temporal-parietal cortex, the insular cortex, and the parietal-frontal cortex. These three areas are related to the perception of one’s own body within a space, self-awareness and movement.
Scientists also had a case of a woman who had piqued their interest. The patient suffered from epilepsy. By means of an electrical mechanism they were able to stimulate the three mentioned brain areas. The result was that she began to feel a ghostly presence on her back.
Based on these findings, scientists began to suspect that the sensation of ghostly presences was related to a problem in the perception of our own body, in a given space and under conditions of movement. The brain seemed to go into confusion when it failed to identify the source of certain stimuli.
The verification experiment
To corroborate everything that had been raised up to that point, the researchers undertook a new experiment. This time we worked with a group of volunteers. All of them suffered from epilepsy, migraine and different types of neurological disorders.
They were all blindfolded. In front of them was a robot that they could move with their index finger. Behind each was another robot, who was a slave to the first. In other words, it reproduced the movements of the first. But the latter gave a light touch on the person’s back, when doing the movements. So the sequence was this: the person touched the robot in front of him with his index finger. The robot behind him touched the patient in the same way.
Apparently some were uncomfortable at first, but then everyone adjusted. However, in the second part of the experiment something new was added. A 500 millisecond delay was introduced between the movement of the first and second robots. After three minutes, all the individuals reported feeling that “someone” touched them again, after the robot had done so. But it was not so.
Most were convinced that there were ghostly presences there. Some even counted up to four ghosts. Others could not tolerate the sensation and had to withdraw. In the end, the team of researchers from Switzerland tested their hypothesis. In certain circumstances, we are not able to correctly perceive our body. We feel that we are out of it. And the ghostly presence is nothing more than our own body that we now perceive as alien.
