# Seeing Dead People **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 14, 2004, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881 "2004-08-14T23:59:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/41 "2004-08-16T06:22:15Z")
> [@Snakespirit](#): > > Congratulations on all fronts, and best of luck. …same here **Washoe** Good luck to y’all and may you have many years of happiness with this woman who I’m sure must be very special. Treasure her and never take her for granted. regards t/k 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/42 "2004-08-16T11:36:27Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > Well, after reading some of your responses I talked with her about it in greater depth. She clarified a few things for me. She told me that only on very rare occasions has she actually _seen_ a dead person—it’s happened maybe 6 or 7 times. She said that it is really more like a “sensing of their presence”. For example, she will sometimes smell her deceased grandmother’s perfume. She also told me that these instances occur more often during periods of deep meditation rather than when she is lying in bed. > > I do love her, which is why I am concerned for her well being. She is a remarkable person in all respects. She is profoundly deaf, and has been since the age of three. Despite this, she is a college graduate and until recently commanded a high salary as a respiratory therapist at a major metropolitan hospital here in Los Angeles. She also has a deeply empathetic nature—a somewhat uncommon personality characteristic these days. > > She was hesitant when I pressed her for additional details, since she fully realized that skepticism would be most people’s reaction to being told that dead people make their presence known to her. She told me that when people died while under her attendance in the ER, she would sense their souls in the immediate vicinity. But she never communicated with them, nor did she ever actually _see them_ à la Haley Joel Osment. > > The long and short of it is that based on what I’ve read here and on what my girlfriend (actually fiancé—we’ve set a wedding date of October 1) told me last night, I see no need for undue alarm at this time. She appears sincere in her beliefs, and she has an extended circle of friends who share the same beliefs and who regularly engage in New Age rituals and practices. For now I’m going to chalk it up to hypnogogic hallucinations and continue to accept her belief systems uncritically. !ANAS— I Am Not A Shrink. She seems to be interperting a minor hypnogogic experience or two in terms of her belief system. Very human. Not scary. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/43 "2004-08-16T16:25:55Z")
A few years back, my uncle started having “eccentric” and “harmless” hallucinations, started speaking to deceased relatives (said he had conversations with his father, my grandfather, on a regular basis) and generally acted the loon. But he wasn’t hurting anyone, had always been a little different from his siblings, so everyone just passed it off as “Oh, you know how he can be.” It wasn’t until he was found unconscious at work and had a CAT scan that the golf-ball sized tumor in his head was discovered. The doctor said that it could possibly have been there for years, albeit smaller, and responsible for the strange behavior he exhibited the last several years. But by then no amount of surgery or chemo could save him, and he died a few months later. I’m not saying that **Washoe** should worry about this. But for other folks reading here, once a person’s behavior verves even farther into the fringe, something you may want to consider is a physiological problem, not merely a differnt belief system. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2004, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/44 "2004-08-16T22:17:20Z")
> [@Snakespirit](#): > > So? You don’t have to believe it. She, and evidently a lot of other people do. I agree, I don’t have to believe it. Whether I have to believe or not is beside the point. The point is whether the asserted belief is supported by any good evidence (as previously defined). This distinction (whether a belief is supported by good evidence or not) can be very helpful when we try to decide what is the best, most appropriate or, indeed, most loving response. > [@](#): > > Many different mechanisms have been posited, including brains being receivers and transmitters of electrical energy. You just ignore them (or don’t read them cause you’re not interested or just zombie-like skeptical). As far as I know, and I believe, none have had their existence demonstrated. Perhaps you mis-read what I wrote. My question was about _plausible_ mechanisms. You are right to say that ‘electrical energy’ has been posited as a mechanism, but it is not a plausible one. We do know that human brain activity involves electrical activity. However, there is not as yet any evidence that one brain can transmit its electrical energy to another, and certainly not in such a way that a thought could be transmitted. Even if we countenance this possibility, it does raise some seemingly intractable questions, as discussed at length in books such as ‘Readings in the Philosophical Problems of Parapsychology’, Edited by Anthony Flew / Prometheus Books, New York 1987, and ‘Pseudo-science and the Paranormal’ by Terence Hines / Prometheus Books, New York, 1988. As to your allegations that I ignore these suggestions or do not read about them, there is no way you could know whether or not this is true. Maybe you just like to have hissy fits and toss out unsubstantiated accusations? As it happens, it is not true. I am very familiar with the range and type of pseudo-explanations which have been suggested by those with an interest or belief in things like telepathy and ESP; my library of books on this subject is fairly large; I have met and worked with several researchers in this field (Richard Wiseman, Susan Blackmore, Chris French, Gregory Stock) and I’ve met and worked with at least one or two people who are ardent believers (Rupert Sheldrake). > [@](#): > > Who are you to decide what people should believe? A social dictator? A psychiatrist? By what authority can you make this potentially damaging assumption? I haven’t said anything at all about what people _should_ believe. Nor am I claiming _any_ authority to do _anything_. I’m pointing out that this particular claim is highly unlikely to be true (because if it is true, and is found to be true, then it will be the first evidentially supported case on record), and that therefore it is at least reasonable to consider that the person making the claim may be failing to observe a healthy distinction between real-life and made-up fantasy. If this is so, it may make a difference to one’s assessment of the best, most appropriate or most loving response. Chucking around abusive terms such as ‘zombie-lke’ isn’t really helping anyone, now is it? ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/45 "2004-08-17T03:56:06Z")
> [@Snakespirit](#): > > Sounds like brainwashing to me. Since that’s what genuine love “sounds” to you, it seems to follow that you’ve never loved someone. If one genuinely loves someone, their best interests become your main interests. To leave them to suffer delusions and to leave them without the help they need to more reliably separate reality from fantasy and illusions is what some people (apparently you are one such) call “love” but I call “laziness, contempt and malignant disregard for the loved one”. > [@Snakespirit](#): > > hey, while you’re at it, get her to accept one of the more extreme sects of Islam, so she cannot let other men see her face or hair. I see: in your worldview, lovingly helping someone recover from mental illness and delusions is exactly equivalent – in your mind – to _ **forcing** _ them into mental illness and delusions. Got it. That’s _two_ concepts you’ve entirely inverted now! > [@Snakespirit](#): > > If you can’t let someone you love maintain their own belief systems, then you don’t know what love is. So – according to you – having delusions and being psychopathologically unable to separate reality from illusion is exactly equivalent to a “belief system”. Got it. So taking a massive dose of LSD or suffering from severe PTSD is exactly equivalent to “having a belief system”. Furthermore, it must follow that converting to Christianity or Islam is equivalent to overdosing on LSD. We’re now up to four bizarrely inverted concepts. > [@Snakespirit](#): > > Changing someone “for their own good” is closer to slavery than love. I’m not surprised that you’ve inverted yet another sensible concept into anti-love propaganda. According to your way of thinking, urging a loved one who is having heart palpitations or kidney failure or advancing cancer to go to a hospital for treatment is “slavery”. You know, many such people refuse to seek genuine medical treatment. According to your perverted notion of “love” (which I would call hate), you should do everything you can to keep them from getting treatment. To do otherwise is to treat them as a slave and is exactly equivalent to forcing them to be “brainwashed” into Islam. I feel great pity for you and for anyone who is a victim of your “love”! ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/46 "2004-08-17T04:28:41Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Why do you think she needs psychiatric help? It’s only a mental illness if it hurts her or others and/or if it interferes with her ability to function. First, Doc, do you actually imagine that severe mental illness always springs full blown and never progresses from mild to severe symptoms? Don’t you recognize a progression in this case? I certainly do! She may be functional today, but what about tomorrow? Why should a genuine lover not try to urge her to seek out scientific medical help at the early signs of symptoms? Would _you_ refuse to urge medical review (which is all I did) for say, someone with only the early signs of breast or colon cancer? Why is mental illness still considered in 2004 by so many yokels and provincials to be different? Why let obsolete, wrong-headed cultural fears and contempt keep a person who genuinely loves another to urge her to seek help early just because we’re talking about a potential _psychological_ illness rather than a physiological one? Have we not matured as a culture even _that_ much? Why wait until their illness becomes so obviously harmful that it is then far more difficult to treat? There’s a word for that: certainly not love, but malignant and reckless disregard. > [@DocCathode](#): > > I don’t agree with your girlfriend’s beliefs. This does not mean they are crazy. In some places it’s considering strange not to carry a protective taliman, and to believe in Mucumbe/Santaria/Voudoun. Jews around the world wrap red ribbons around a baby’s crib and place talismans in the windows to guard against Lilith and her children. This doesn’t make any of them crazy. “Crazy” isn’t the issue. Nor does it involve belief systems. We’re talking about a potentially life-destroying mental illness! > [@DocCathode](#): > > Other than the cost, how are her beliefs harmful or dysfunctional? How is being unable to distinguish reality from illusion or fantasy dysfunctional??? Are you kidding?? Yikes! This does not sound very much like hypnagogic hallucinations to me. I’ve experienced them, and there is nothing consistent about what I hallucinated. I saw all kinds of unrelated things, from mostly amorphous blobs floating across the room to what looked like a tiny three-ring circus to alien-like shapes to what looked vaguely like Bill Mahr doing a silent stand-up routine. The fact that this woman is specifically and repeatedly “seeing” dead people who are not there is more consistent with someone on the verge of a psychotic break or perhaps schizophrenia. Of course, it _may_ be nothing of the sort, **but the only way to find out is to urge her to see a qualified scientific mental health provider!** ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/47 "2004-08-17T04:38:50Z")
> [@Snakespirit](#): > > I agree with your assessment, **Doc** , no reason yet to decide that this is any more or less than a convenient belief system being used to explain unfamiliar experiences. If there’s any reason to pursue further analysis, it will become evident. Sure, snakespit. Perhaps when she murders sixteen schoolchildren because she wants them to go to heaven where she can “see” them in bed after they’re dead. More realistically, after she’s had her psychotic breakdown that’s so severe she’ll may never completely recover. All because you so casually demand she not be treated with love and instead be treated with hatred in the form of malignant disregard of her lesser symptoms. Genuine love is clearly alien to you. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/48 "2004-08-17T04:49:31Z")
Okay, I just got to Woshoe’s post #31 where he elucidates far more clearly and concretely that his fiance doesn’t actually “see” anything, and just has some kind of mild, amorphous “feeling” that she mentally associates with people who were once dear to her. Obviously, there’s not even a _hint_ of mental illness there, and I’m profoundly relieved and happy for this couple’s good fortunes. Of course, I don’t retract a single word I said earlier, especially given the earlier descriptions we were given. They’re still just as loving and just as important in general terms. Love means urging our loved ones to seek or accept help, not malignantly disregarding them. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/49 "2004-08-17T04:59:39Z")
> [@Sean Factotum](#): > > A few years back, my uncle started having “eccentric” and “harmless” hallucinations, started speaking to deceased relatives (said he had conversations with his father, my grandfather, on a regular basis) and generally acted the loon. But he wasn’t hurting anyone, had always been a little different from his siblings, so everyone just passed it off as “Oh, you know how he can be.” > It wasn’t until he was found unconscious at work and had a CAT scan that the golf-ball sized tumor in his head was discovered. The doctor said that it could possibly have been there for years, albeit smaller, and responsible for the strange behavior he exhibited the last several years. But by then no amount of surgery or chemo could save him, and he died a few months later. > I’m not saying that **Washoe** should worry about this. But for other folks reading here, once a person’s behavior verves even farther into the fringe, something you may want to consider is a physiological problem, not merely a differnt belief system. **Thank you, Sean!** Thanks for giving a real-life example of exactly the kind of thing I was talking about! I am very sorry about your uncle, though. That’s very sad. ---
**Author:** ![jellyblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e480ec/32.png) [@jellyblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jellyblue)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/50 "2004-08-17T05:29:00Z")
I’m a psychologist { **qualified scientific mental health provider** , here) and if Washoe’s girlfriend came in and told me what she told him (assuming it wasn’t the _reason_ she was coming in, i.e., it was distressing her), I’d just want to gather a lot more information from her. And not necessarily for the purpose of debating whether what she’s claiming is “true” or not - it’s true enough for her to verbalize it, 'nough said. That issue stops the discussion at the least interesting point, IMO. How about what it _means_ to her that she sees them? How does she feel about it? Is she frightened or does she feel calm? Is she more apt to see them some times rather than others? Those are far more useful questions. Creative, bright, unusual people make meaning of and find meaning in this world in many different ways. Mostly, there’s absolutely no harm in it and often a certain grace and beauty not found in the same old, same old. I hope it works out for you two, **Washoe**. She sounds like an interesting and unique person and it sounds like you love her very much ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/51 "2004-08-17T10:35:40Z")
I’m open to the possibility that she really is communicating with the dead. For religious people, how much of a stretch can this be? The greater probability is that she’s simply experiencing vivid dreams, but I for one cannot say with 100% certainty that she cannot be experiencing the real thing. ---
**Author:** ![SnakeSpirit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snakespirit/32/7271_2.png) [@SnakeSpirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakeSpirit)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/52 "2004-08-17T19:15:16Z")
> [@ianzin](#): > > Perhaps you mis-read what I wrote. My question was about _plausible_ mechanisms. Yes, you are right. I thought you were being snarky and authoritarian. Your courtesy in the manner you answered my retort shows that it is unlikely that was your intent. > [@ianzin](#): > > As to your allegations that I ignore these suggestions or do not read about them, there is no way you could know whether or not this is true. Maybe you just like to have hissy fits and toss out unsubstantiated accusations? Well, I have done that in the past. I don’t _like_ to do it, though. I kinda get a knee-jerk reaction when I think people are trying to “should” all over us, if you get what I mean. Seems like there’s lots of folks out there who think they ‘know’ what’s best for everyone else and go out of their way to impose it upon them. If that was not your intent, my mistake, my apologies. > [@ianzin](#): > > therefore it is at least reasonable to consider that the person making the claim may be failing to observe a healthy distinction between real-life and made-up fantasy. If this is so, it may make a difference to one’s assessment of the best, most appropriate or most loving response. Your original comment: (emphasis mine) > [@](#): > > There is therefore every good reason to suppose that she is failing to maintain a healthy distinction between fiction and reality. still rubs me the wrong way. It seems a bit judgemental and controlling. You may disagree. You comment from the more recent post is less offensive, IMHO. I don’t like people telling me they know what’s best for me, and I equally resent it when people pass judgement on the preferences, experiences or belief systems of others. But I will practice letting them know more politely. ---
**Author:** ![SnakeSpirit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snakespirit/32/7271_2.png) [@SnakeSpirit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SnakeSpirit)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2004, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881/53 "2004-08-17T19:29:03Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > I feel great pity for you and for anyone who is a victim of your “love”! **ambushed,** I consider your entire post to be an attack upon me, rather than a disagreement with my ideas. You have no right to make assumptions like that about me, and I resent it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeing-dead-people/259881.md?page=2)