Children may be more vulnerable to carbon monoxide poisoning because of their increased metabolic demand and their inability to vocalize symptoms or recognize a dangerous exposure, and newborn infants are more vulnerable to carbon monoxide poisoning because of the persistence of fetal hemoglobin. They then asked 79 participants to spend 50 minutes inside their “haunted” chamber.Ĭontrary to Hollywood expectations, no one died or was driven hopelessly insane, although “many participants reported anomalous sensations of various kinds” which the researchers attributed not so much to the experimental conditions but to one other common explanation for ghostly experiences: “suggestibility.Approximately 5000 children present to the emergency department annually with unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning. In a May 2009 paper in the journal Cortex, psychologists from Goldsmiths College in London wrote about their attempt to do just that. So can a person build their own “haunted” house by incorporating these elements? Other environmental explanations for ghostly phenomenon include low-frequency sound waves (infrasound), said to cause feelings of nervousness and discomfort and vibrations in the eye which can produce illusions fluctuations in the electromagnetic field, which can purportedly interact with the brain, causing dizziness, hallucinations, and other neurological symptoms (paranormal buffs often point to these fluctuations as proof of a ghost’s existence) and inconsistent lighting and temperature, which in certain circumstances can unconsciously “spook” human beings. Nickell says studies have shown that people who are tired or are performing mindless tasks are more susceptible to these visions and, again, it’s a body thing, not a disembodied thing. “They’ll turn and their mind will fill in the blank – they’ll see a Civil War soldier or a ‘gray lady’ - and then it will promptly vanish.” “Someone will be doing some routine chore like polishing the furniture – they’ll be in a near-reverie or daydream state – and they’ll see something out of the corner of their eye,” he says. He says a “ghost” can also be an illusion produced by the brain, particularly when a person is tired. Ghostly sightings can also be brought on as a result of a psychotic state, drug use, sleep deprivation or temporal lobe epilepsy. It’s extremely common and very, very often the simplest and best explanation for a ghost.”īut it’s not the only explanation. That’s enough to diagnose it right there. “People will often tell you that they just went to bed or will say they woke up at 2 in the morning,” he says. Nickell says the phenomenon, which has been suffered by humans for centuries, also explains both the demonic visitations people reported during the Middle Ages as well as today’s reports of alien abductions. “They’ll often see someone coming into their room and they’re not able to move or talk or scream or do anything.” “Some people have visions where they feel something is trying to strangle or choke them or they have a sense of impending doom,” she says. Yadav says these “waking dreams” can involve serpents, spiders, intruders, and yes, even ghosts and are often associated with feelings of dread. It can last from a few seconds to a minute or two and is often associated with hypnagogic hallucinations, things you might see when trying to fall asleep or hypnopompic hallucinations, things you see when you’re trying to wake up.” “But this somehow happens while you’re awake. “It seems like you’re paralyzed, which naturally occurs when you’re sleeping,” says Yadav. Priyanka Yadav, a sleep specialist at the Somerset Medical Sleep for Life Center in Hillsborough, N.J., says sleep paralysis occurs when there’s a disconnect between mind and body while people are going in or coming out of REM sleep. Instead, Nickell says “ghosts” are often the result of pranks, environmental phenomenon, or physiological conditions such as sleep paralysis and the hypnogogic and hypnopompic hallucinations that accompany it.ĭr. “And I’ve never found a paranormal explanation.” Cbs Photo Archive / Getty Images fileīarney Fife (played by Don Knotts), Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) and Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) investigate a haunted house in an episode of "The Andy Griffith Show." “I’ve investigated haunted houses, inns, theatres, graveyards, lighthouses, castles, old jails, and even office buildings,” says Nickell, who’s researched stories of ghosts, vampires, werewolves, sea monsters, psychic phenomenon and other unusual phenomenon for 40 years. But are there physiological explanations for those things that go bump in the night?Ībsolutely, says Joe Nickell, a senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, an organization that promotes scientific inquiry and critical investigation of paranormal and other extraordinary claims.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |