In the folklore, a ghost or a spirit is regarded as the soul of a dead person or an animal which appears to the living. In the ghost lore, ghosts have different descriptions which vary from an invisible presence to translucent or hardly visible realistic shapes and lifelike images. Contacting a dead person intentionally is referred to as necromancy and is believed to the be main cause why the ghosts appear to people. Concerning worship of the ancestors and animism in the pre-literate culture, people believed in afterlife and appearances of the dead. Some religious practices, exorcism, spiritualism practices and funeral rituals were explicitly meant to rest the spirits of the dead ( Ladd,2008). Ghosts are referred to as human-like essences even though some communities recount stories of ghostly animals and armies. These ghosts are believed to haunt various locations, people or objects whom they had some relationship in life. Scientists have however made a consensus that there are no ghosts in real life and hunting of ghosts is categorized as pseudoscience. In spite of many centuries of research and investigation, there has been no scientific proof of any particular location that has been habited by ghosts.
Terminology & Ontology
The term ghost is defined as a dirty word which people need to rethink about it regarding discussions. People have been in differing opinions concerning the existence of ghosts, with the skeptics standing on their own where they support their arguments with scientific explanations ( Farid,2009). On the other hand, the paranormalists claiming that they have discovered something that scientists cannot comprehend. The people in the' haunted movie initially believed that ghosts do not exist, but they came across something that gave them doubts. With knowledge of the social stigma that they would experience when they tell people about the experience, they decided to keep it to themselves. This issue explains why the skeptic community is highly skilled in interpreting the occurrence of strange phenomena but in most cases, they do not consider knowing the reason behind that.
In efforts to prove the non-existence of ghosts, it is possible to overlook the things that are facing us directly. People encounter experiences that look like ghosts, and once they decide to believe in them, the ghosts become real and begin to have physical impacts on their lives. The existence of ghosts is based on the thought that specific paranormal experiences have a particular sequence that they follow in history. Believers take this as the tangible evidence of the reality and existence of ghosts while skeptics tend to believe that it is just a belief contagion. This proves the extent to which human beings need ghosts and the depth of their existence in the psyche of human beings. In spite of the skeptics' efforts, human beings are a species and are unable to remove the thought about the existence of ghosts ( Danker & Anderson,2010). Some people have faith that God exists but do not believe in ghosts while other believe in ghosts but do not believe in God. Despite having faith in God, some people cannot sleep in a house that is said to be haunted.
Scientific view
John Ferriar, a physician, wrote an essay which he explained his idea that ghosts come from optical illusions. After some time, Alexandre Jacques a French physician write that ghosts were as a result of hallucinations. Another physical chemist wrote that inanimate objects could move as a result of ball lightning. According to Joe Nickell of the Skeptical inquiry committee, there is no tangible evidence from science that there has been any located that is habited by ghosts or spirits of the dead. Ghost sightings can be attributed to limitations of human perception and conventional physical theories such as changes in air pressure leading to door slams, changes in humidity making boards to creak, lights from a car reflecting at the window of a house or condensation of electrical connections leading intermittent reactions. Some skeptics believe in pareidolia which is the tendency to identify patterns in random beliefs, as being the reason why ghosts appear. There have been reports about ghosts that occur at the eye’s corner which may be associated with sensitivity of the peripheral vision of a human being (Farid,2008). Nickell suggested that peripheral vision could be misled easily especially when the brain is tired during the night, making it possible to make misinterpretations of sounds and sights.
Nickell also states that science cannot justify the existence of life energy that could conquer death without operating without the brain. He asks the question of if ghosts glide, there should be no claims about people hearing them with heavy footfalls ( Rosenburg,2010). He suggests that ghosts operate in the same way as memories, imaginings, and dreams because they are also mental creations. Symbolize the real and natural world and not another one. Benjamin Radford from the Skeptical inquiry committee and an author of the book about investigating the existence of spirits says that hunting of ghosts is one of the world's paranormal pursuit yet today hunters cannot conclude what ghosts are or whether they exist and therefore it is all about guessing and speculation. He suggests that it would be vital to differentiate between the types of apparitions and spirits. Before then it’s just a parlor game meant to disrupt ghost hunters from their duty at hand.
From research, in anomalistic psychology, there may arise visions of ghosts from hypnagogic hallucinations. From a two experiments' study into alleged hauntings, a conclusion was made that people report unusual experiences in haunted areas due to environmental factors which may be different in various locations ( Ramphele,2008). Some of the elements comprise the differences in local magnetic fields, stimuli of lighting level where many witnesses could not be conversant with. One of the possible explanation for the haunted house was discovered to be poisoning caused by carbon monoxide which is capable of causing changes in perception in visual and auditory systems. People that experience sleep paralysis, mainly give reports of ghost sightings during their encounters. Baland and Ramachandran, neuroscientists, have come up with neurological theories as to why people experience hallucinations of ghosts in their sleep paralysis. Their approaches emphasize the role of the mirror neurons and parietal lobe in causing ghostly hallucinations.
A Sign of the Times
There have been exorcism practices in the Christian and Islamic faiths, horror films, and articles which have come up with creepy tales that assert the fears of the audience about the existence of ghosts making them have tingles in their spine during their day to day activities. From a skeptic view, it would be easy to experience the spirit –boom as a sign of the times. Nevertheless it is possible to view it as one sign of the times in different perspective rather than a sign of the irrational chaos in a world where things are run by dangerous Reality TV celebrities with his finger on the nuclear key but an answer to it is the collection of hope, magic, and comfort for a world that is cruel and bleak ( Ladd,2008). For some people, the issue of ghosts belief is a paradox whereby ghosts despite being associated with death can be so comforting too. Ghost stories bring about tension to the lives of human , beings, but at the same time, they reinforce security of their existence.
There has been a recent movie with the title,’ haunted which involved people that felt the spirits of their loved ones had haunted their house. Amazingly these people were happy that they could be in some way connected to their loved one ( Ladd,2008). Through awkward occurrences such as the falling of glass whenever they think of the person, they believed that the person was present in the house and watching over them. In the believer's opinion, these ghosts acted as, ways of dealing with grief and whether imagined or real, they brought comfort in the house. If the humankind adopted this idea, it could be concluded that ghosts are a defense mechanism against the greatest enemy to humanity which is death — the help in processing the thought that all human beings will die one day and therefore they are a social or cultural necessity.
Hayley Stevens who is an actor in one of the seasons of the Haunted movie described how her mother’s death changed her perception about ghosts ( Rosenburg,2010). The flickering of the lamp light in her house during the moment of grief signified a presence that brought conflict between her broken heart and her skeptic's head which longed for someone she missed. There is work that needs to be done by scientists of proving the existence of ghosts and helping people understand the reason for their ghostly experiences. These explanations and investigations can play a significant role in driving out fear where one is ill, or a house is haunted. Ghosts are sometimes necessary because they bridge the gap between life and death and a world without the two.
Personal opinion
Since creation of human beings, people have always made claims of being visited by ghosts, demons, and spirits. Nevertheless, most of those who claim to have seen them talk about having them appear during the late night hours. In my own opinion, my rational explanation is based on the theory that paranormal experiences are not by any chance related to ghosts but are a result of one's sleep patterns. I believe there are various ways in which disruption during sleep can be confused with ghouls. Sleep paralysis is one way whereby one reaches the deep sleep or the REM stage where they become paralyzed in a way that they cannot act out their dreams.
Nevertheless, about eight percent of people are still conscious during the REM stage, and their dreams could be transferred to real life, thus confusing with visualizing things and people who are not there.Another explanation could be the exploding head syndrome whereby a person hears a loud band while drifting off but has no rationale behind it. Generally when one sleeps, the reticular formation of the brainstem begins to slow down the ability to hear, see or move things. These changes in sleep patterns could, therefore, be the causes of false visuals at night which are misinterpreted for ghosts.
Conclusion
Ghosts seem to be fun and that explains why people love ghost movies, Halloween and tv shows that feature ghostly experiences. The way someone gets a kick from a story of a ghost does not by any way differ from the kick they get from a vampire or zombie story. Ghosts are believed to give hope that the people that we love are not completely gone after death and there is something good that awaits each one of us on the other side of life. A casual belief of ghosts can therefore give some creepy kind of comfort. Nevertheless, I still stand with the belief that ghosts do not exist and it nags me to know that if I ever believed in their existence, then I would have to deal with them.
Most of the objects that are assumed to be ghosts and spirits are just non-human creatures or visions that come from specific biological changes and medical conditions in the body. In most cases some illnesses especially those that are related to the brain will have an effect on how people visualize things both during the day and at night. Sometimes the changes in sleep patterns are capable of causing significant hallucinations and visions of false objects which are confused with ghosts. Nevertheless, since some communities believe in the existence of ghosts as a result trying to contact the dead, it is essential to avoid arousing the spirits of the deceased.
References
Ladd, B. (2008). The ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German history in the urban landscape. University of Chicago Press.
Rosenberg, T. (2010). The haunted land: Facing Europe's ghosts after communism. Vintage.
Ramphele, M. (2008). Laying ghosts to rest: Dilemmas of the transformation in South Africa (p. 143). Cape Town: Tafelberg.
Farid, H. (2009). Exposing digital forgeries from JPEG ghosts. IEEE Trans. Information Forensics and Security, 4(1), 154-160.
Danker, J. F., & Anderson, J. R. (2010). The ghosts of brain states past: remembering reactivates the brain regions engaged during encoding. Psychological bulletin, 136(1), 87.
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