# Why do so many people believe in ghosts (and other paranormal)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 29, 2013, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802 "2013-07-29T10:55:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/121 "2013-08-03T19:25:47Z")
I think I’ve told this before, but I had a sleepover with two friends, at the time I had moved into the basement. There was one light switch for the basement lights, in the middle of a flight of VERY creaky stairs (so no one could turn the light on or off without making a ton of sound). We were getting ready to go to bed, I had a bed and two couches down there. It was the first time they slept over after I had moved from upstairs to the basement, and they were spooked (it was a spooky, unfinished basement admittedly). The lights were off and they were saying it was scary, we were all around 11-12. Then I said “Wouldn’t it be freaky if the lights just turned themselves on?” Not even a FRACTION of a second later the basement was flooded with light and the lights had been turned on. They all freaked out, and we tried to figure it out, because no one could’ve turn the light switch on without making a ton of creaking stair noises, and it was the only switch in the house for the basement lights. I thought it was cool, myself. I don’t believe it was ghosts but I can’t explain it either. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/122 "2013-08-03T19:31:21Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > All right. The topic is “Why do people believe in ghosts?” Posting your own belief(s) over and over is not addressing the actual question. > You have made your point: you have had experiences that you believe were ghostly. Fine. Unless you have something specific to address the actual question, quit simply repeating your anecdotes. You have now posted enough information about your beliefs to provide other posters with enough information to make up their own minds about your beliefs. You have no need to keep flooding the thread with more such anecdotes. > > [/Moderating] After reading all the other posts this seems to be out of place, especially when everyone is posting the same as I. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/123 "2013-08-03T20:22:13Z")
When my mother passed away in the final few hours before her death she went in and out of conciousness. Several times durring these periods she would talk to her cousins from Ohio that she had not seen in over 70 years. What was odd that was 2 of her brothers that I know of also seemed to be talking to those same cousins at the time of thier death. They had all died several years previous. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/124 "2013-08-04T14:46:56Z")
I was reading an article recently on Spontaneous Human Combustion. The author noted that victims of SHC commonly had a history of being careless smokers. He remarked on this unusual coincidence. :dubious: Similarly, a common thread in paranormal stories is the extremely low threshold for belief in religious and spirit world occurrences among those who experience such events. I, who am skeptical have no ghost/paranormal stories to relate. **lekatt** on the other hand has “hundreds”. Again, what a remarkable coincidence. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/125 "2013-08-04T16:22:44Z")
So, anyway, back to the OP, why do people believe in ghosts? I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet, but believing in ghosts is fun. Same for any paranormal event or any conspiracy theory. (Sort of the same thing, really.) Remember the crop circles? When that first hit the news I couldn’t help but hope that the explanation would be something like a previously unknown or unnoticed atmospheric phenomenon. Imagining that we were witnessing a phenomenon never before recorded in human history was exhilarating. Imagining a couple of old farts out on a lark… not so much. Ghost stories are just fun. They get the blood flowing; you get goose bumps; adrenaline kicks in. They are fun even if you don’t believe any of it. They are more fun when they are believed. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/126 "2013-08-05T00:12:20Z")
> [@El\_Zagna](#): > > Remember the crop circles? When that first hit the news I couldn’t help but hope that the explanation would be something like a previously unknown or unnoticed atmospheric phenomenon. Imagining that we were witnessing a phenomenon never before recorded in human history was exhilarating. Imagining a couple of old farts out on a lark… not so much. Although they have been proven to be hoaxes, unsurprisingly, [belief that crop circles](http://exopermaculture.com/2013/07/16/crop-circles-july-2013/) are created by extraterrestrials persists. The crop circles craze in the '90s was a prime example of gullible folks who were already receptive to supernatural concepts assigning an extranormal cause with absolutely no evidence. This is no different than those who believe in ghosts …or deities for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2013, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/127 "2013-08-05T00:17:40Z")
> [@Onomatopoeia](#): > > Although they have been proven to be hoaxes, unsurprisingly, are created by extraterrestrials persists. They are not all hoaxes. Before the hoaxers hit, very simple circles had occurred, even back in olden times. Mind you, many natural phenomena can do a simple circle. But of course once the complex circles showed up, the UFOologists were saying "See, _these_ can’t be made by natural causes’ and they were right\*. - of course a couple of old guys and some boards could be argued to be “natural” but human artifacts are generally not considered to be “natural”. ---
**Author:** ![MIDWESTcowboy8312](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@MIDWESTcowboy8312](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MIDWESTcowboy8312)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2013, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/128 "2013-08-05T02:43:11Z")
Here’s a good ghost story, my uncle was staying at mission point hotel and was taking a shower, (the place was supposedly haunted), he said he was looking down and looked up ( the shower curtain was clear) and their was a man standing on the other side of the curtain staring at him. REALLY CREEPY!!! It scared him so bad he slipped and hit his head, when he pulled the curtain back the guy was gone!!! This is 100% true my cousins were in the room and confirm what happened. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/129 "2013-08-05T03:07:22Z")
> [@MIDWESTcowboy8312](#): > > Here’s a good ghost story, my uncle was staying at mission point hotel and was taking a shower, (the place was supposedly haunted), he said he was looking down and looked up ( the shower curtain was clear) and their was a man standing on the other side of the curtain staring at him. REALLY CREEPY!!! It scared him so bad he slipped and hit his head, when he pulled the curtain back the guy was gone!!! This is 100% true my cousins were in the room and confirm what happened. Very funny. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2013, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/130 "2013-08-05T05:10:39Z")
Our brains, proven as reliable as we need them to be if only at giving us the basic ability to survive. In this, we have this profound ability to make abstract connections, original thinking, vivid imaginations, along with the ability to pass these ideas on to others. Our perceptions and how our minds process it manifest in all sorts of weird leaks, that are shockingly vivid or incredibly lucid and surreal states of consciousness. I can see how these tricks of perception and cognition can be interpreted as leaks of the mysterious afterlife, rather than some bleak explanation that our brains just do weird shit sometimes that parades as perception, and you can interpret whatever with wishful, exciting fantasies… or the acceptance that there’s nothing more than this existence. This is it. The mundane. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/131 "2013-08-07T11:55:29Z")
Belief in ghosts is fun… its much nicer than the usual explanations (creaking floors in a settling old house, mice, animals, etc.). People like being scared-why do people ride roller coasters? To all you believers: why are ghosts and hauntings so rare? If they are real, there ought to be lots of haunted houses-why not? ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/132 "2013-08-07T12:58:48Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > To all you believers: why are ghosts and hauntings so rare? If they are real, there ought to be lots of haunted houses-why not? And why hasn’t there been an explosion of ghost (and UFO and yeti and Nessie and Mothman) photos in the last decade or so as the amount of people who always have a camera in their pocket has exploded? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2013, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/133 "2013-08-07T21:20:36Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > And why hasn’t there been an explosion of ghost (and UFO and yeti and Nessie and Mothman) photos in the last decade or so as the amount of people who always have a camera in their pocket has exploded? Those From Beyond seldom work that way. Researcher James Houran notes that only about 1% of all encounters show clear visual images. Maybe about a third are something like fleeting flashes of light or strangely moving shadows. Another third involve sound (bumps, etc). The final third might be an odd sensation, draft, cold shiver, etc. (Science has yet to come up with an explanation for odd shivers that will persuade everyone. Uncanny!) As for the 1%, it typically occurs when the ghost witness is falling asleep or waking up: I’m not surprised that the spirit would flee by the time a camera would be properly pointed at him or her. Cite: [Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there: Wiseman, Richard: 9780956875655: Amazon.com: Books](http://www.amazon.com/Paranormality-Why-what-isnt-there/dp/0956875653/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375909752&sr=8-1&keywords=paranormality) Richard Wiseman discusses imagery occasionally produced when the subject is on the verge of sleep. They can involve a wide range of visual phenomenon, sometimes quite vivid and often accompanied by sounds. “Interestingly, these are exactly the type of experiences that have been mistaken for the presence of a ghost for hundreds of years.” Other times, they are like a demon crouching on one’s chest and causing one to loose breath. Sleep researchers report that the best way to banish such creatures is to “…try your best to wiggle a finger or blink. Even the smallest of movements will help your brain shift from the REM state to “Stage 1” of sleep, and before you know it you will be wide awake…” ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/134 "2013-08-14T05:40:48Z")
Chapter 5 of [Wiseman’s book](http://www.amazon.com/Paranormality-Why-what-isnt-there/dp/0956875653/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375909752&sr=8-1&keywords=paranormality) is devoted to perceptions of ghosts. I was in the middle of the chapter when I wrote the above. In the remainder, he describes the research of neuropsychologist Michael Persinger. Persinger places a helmet on respondents to expose their brains to slight magnetic fields, then has them answer a questionnaire. Eighty percent check “yes” to at least one of a number of notable experiences ranging from “strange sensations” to “coming face to face with God”. So maybe its magnetic fields. Unfortunately, Persinger didn’t run a controlled experiment. Pehr Granqvist did, taking care to turn on the coils only 1/2 of the time and not telling participants or experimenters which was which. It turns out that both groups reported intense spiritual experiences as well as more subtle effects. It’s not magnetics, it’s human suggestibility. Along those lines, Wiseman notes that odorless green fluid can produce perceptions of a peppermint smell with the right sort of framing. Once we accept the power of suggestibility (something I readily do, being more suggestible than average though thankfully not highly suggestible, IMHO) haunted houses become more understandable. A bump is heard and somebody gets spooked. Their vigilance increases… which causes them to hear things they would otherwise ignore. Humans are top notch recognizers of patterns, to the point of seeing things that aren’t there, such as faces on cars or electrical outlets. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/135 "2013-08-14T08:01:41Z")
> [@Mr.Gary](#): > > There are all sorts of fancy explanations that can be given but it will all boil down to the fact that most people fear death. When I die what will happen to my thoughts and memories? Do they just vanish like a program that has been deleted? Admittedly not a pleasant thought so people create the “ghost” as a way to gain a small amount of comfort and solace. > . I don’t think so. Ghosts are the frightening side of life after death, not its reassuring side. Ghosts are people who either suffered greatly or at the contrary commited great crimes, or didn’t receive a proper burial. They’re tormented and often torment the livings until whatever wrong was commited is adressed or paid for. The presence of a ghost is a sign that the natural order of the world has been broken and must be restored (the criminal denounced, the task accomplished, the ritual performed…). There’s usually nothing comforting about the existence of a ghost. I’m talking about the traditional view of ghosts. Obviously, since the 19th century mediums, some people came up with more positive conceptions of ghosts, but they still stay on the frightening side generally speaking. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802.md?page=6)