THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GHOSTS

 

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THE "SENSED PRESENCE"

The sensed presence usually happen to people with high levels of stress and who have been isolated in an extreme or unusual environment. People with a sensed presence, say that they have a feeling that there is somebody else beside themselves to help them cope with the situations. This perception of a presence, can range from a vague feeling of being watched or a clearly perceived flesh and blood entity.

Many of the reported supernatural experiences occurs when people wake up from their sleep. It can probably be because the mind had still not waken up, even when the body had. Our eyes can open and at the same time, dreams can continue. So, generally, people experiencing sleep paralysis tend to complain a higher amount of supernatural occurrences. Many people tend to see figures of ghosts because of hypnopompic hallucinations during sleep. The visual representation too, is influenced by the culture. Thus, during a study, many Europeans saw witches or demons and the Americans were more likely to see aliens.

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WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?

• One reason is pretty simple, that we have a desire to see people we've lost. The mind sees what it wants to see. Whenever we lose contact with somebody, or someone close to us dies, there's always a sense of possibility in mind that we might see that person again. As humans, when someone dies, we don't understand the finality of it. It's often difficult for people to accept that they won't ever be able to see a person again.
• A desire to believe that the end doesn't really mean an end. People want to believe that death is not the final end for them or their loved ones, and that there is so much more than that.
• Majority of people who believe in after-life, tends to believe in ghosts as well. For these people, there is not much difference between the living and the dead.
• Religion can also be a reason why many people believe in ghosts. The influence of culture affects an individual's thought process. For example, if your family told you ghost stories as a kid, there's a high possibility you'll grow up believing in spirits or ghosts.
• Loneliness & lack of security: For some people, I think fear of ghosts may also be fear of their own presence, of the silence when no one else is around and of the scariness of their own thoughts.

WHY PEOPLE DON'T BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?

• Simply, the idea of spirituality does not make sense to them. They question spirituality or they think the spirit is only a personality of a person, and there exists nothing after a person dies.
• They believe in the heaven and hell. They think if the heaven and the hell already exists, why would someone's spirit still roam around after death.
• They have a tendency to look for logical and physical evidences.

WHY WE FEAR GHOSTS?

• We fear from the unknown and we want to know what happens after death. So, we make stories because having a theory is more comforting that having nothing.

• Ghosts are already dead so we can't really defend ourselves from them. As far as we know, based on rules there can be different kind of ghosts, like, some are see-through, some are solid, some can't touch a solid surface, some follow you when you move, some are limited to one place, some can touch you, some know that they're dead and some don't.

• We don't know how ghosts work, so we don't know how to protect ourselves from them or get rid of them. Do we yell at them? Do we cry? Do we politely ask them to leave? Do we throw holy water at them? We simply do not know, and it terrifies people.

• Another reason why we fear from ghosts, is because the idea of ghosts excites us and we want the feeling of thrill and adventure. For example, people vising haunted places on their own or playing haunted games, because they crave that excitement. The more anxious a person is, the more they like the idea of fear.

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