My Ghost Story

[Daylightstar]

Actually, the first thing to do would be to establish the creaking of the floor actually happening well after it has been walked on.
How would we go about ruling out mundane explanations if the creaking does occur as per the op and what if the creaking repeatedly does not occur when trying to establish it's occurrence?

 

[Darwin123]

Actually, the first thing to do would be to establish the creaking of the floor actually happening well after it has been walked on.
How would we go about ruling out mundane explanations if the creaking does occur as per the op and what if the creaking repeatedly does not occur when trying to establish it's occurrence?

It seems to me that being in a dark room at night in an abandoned house without a hearing aid is sensory deprivation. Under the conditions that he described, he could have had an auditory hallucination due to sensory deprivation.

http://www.wired.com/2009/10/hallucinations/
‘Psychologists stuck 19 healthy volunteers into a sensory-deprivation room, completely devoid of light and sound, for 15 minutes. Without the normal barrage of sensory information flooding their brains, many people reported experiencing visual hallucinations, paranoia and a depressed mood.
“This is a pretty robust finding,” wrote psychiatrist Paul Fletcher of the University of Cambridge, who studies psychosis but was not involved in the study. “It appears that, when confronted by lack of sensory patterns in our environment, we have a natural tendency to superimpose our own patterns.’

http://mindhacks.com/2009/10/19/hallucinations-in-sensory-deprivation-after-15-minutes/
‘Hallucinations, paranoid thoughts and low mood were reported more often after sensory deprivation for both groups but, interestingly, people already who had a tendency to have hallucinations in everyday life had a much greater level of perceptual distortion after leaving the chamber than the others.
This study complements research published in 2004 that found that visual hallucinations could be induced in healthy participants just by getting them to wear a blindfold for 96 hours.’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_deprivation
‘short-term sessions of sensory deprivation are described as relaxing and conducive to meditation; however, extended or forced sensory deprivation can result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations,[2] bizarre thoughts, and depression.’

Some people don’t believe that sensory deprivation causes hallucinations. They think is connects you to the spirit world. So maybe these haints aren’t specific to the building.

http://www.crystalinks.com/visionquest.html
‘vision quest may include long walks in uninhabited, monotonous areas (tundra, inland, mountain); fasting; sleep deprivation; being closed in a small room (e.g. igloo). The technique may be similar to sensory deprivation to a rite of cleansing and purification. One objective is to commune with the other side.’

I still don’t understand why he left his hearing aid behind. He he is in an empty room. He should want to hear what he is stepping on.

Maybe it is as simple as he was sleeping. He may have been on a marching sleep. Soldiers on the march can sleep while marching. He was sleepy, in a dark room where he couldn’t hear anything. How did he manage to stay awake?

 

[Darwin123]

OK, to begin with, I am an extremely skeptical person. I do not believe in ghosts, EVPs, or any of that nonsense.

Nevertheless, I had an experience not to long ago, that I am struggling to come up with a rational explanation for.

I am a consultant by trade, I specialize in building inspections for environmental, Health and Safety issues. Last year, I had a project that involved an inspection and inventory of all the different ceilings in a large, high school building where portions of the buildings were built in various phases from the late 1800's on.

Even though it was summer, we had to do the work from 3:00 to 11:00 in the evening. With the exception of a few people in the admin wing, the building essentially emptied out at 5:00.

The first two nights, I had an assistant with me and we got about 90% of the work done. The third night I was by myself and trying to finish up some minor areas that we had trouble accessing the first two nights. My client contact had mentioned that the building could sometimes get creepy late at night, but I didn't really pay any attention to that. I'm used to how old masonry and wood framed buildings shift and creak as they cool down in the evening.

Back in the early 20th century it was common to build schools with an auditorium on the 1st and 2nd floor, and the gym on the third floor above the auditorium. This was a 4 story building so they even had a nice balcony on the gym accessible from the 4th floor. It was getting late, and I was on the fourth floor by the gym balcony when I noticed a set of stairs leading up.

Curious, I went up them to see if there was an accessible attic. there was. there was a large space that had at one time served as the school locker room. there was a long gallery with a tongue and groove wood floor and hard plaster walls about 18 feet wide running about 60 feet long with a shower room at the other end. The lights worked, so I went down across the room and inspected the showers, no issues for me to deal with. there was another set of stairs leading down from that end, and something about that area was making me a bit edgy.

Maybe it was just the thought that "If there is a rotted floorboard up here, and I get hurt, it's going to be a while before they find me."

I was planning to just head down the other set of stairs, but there was a problem, the light switches were at the end I came from

So, I reluctantly turned around and began walking back across the old locker room to the other stairwell so I could turn off the lights behind me.

Man that was one creaky floor. Funny, it didn't seem that noisy when I walked across it the first time. I get to the other end and at the top of the stairs and I stop to turn off the lights.

I stopped. However, the floorboards did not stop creaking. For about 6-7 seconds, the creaking sound came towards me as if someone was walking across the floor, following me.

I didn't run, but I got the hell out of there as fast as I could, thoroughly creeped out. Now logically I could attribute this simply to the old floors and joists settling back into place after I walked over them.

But I have never heard that happen that loudly or for that long after you stopped moving.

Structurally, the joists should have been running across the locker room from side to side, not lengthwise, so I doubt that me standing at one spot would have affected the floor 15 feet further down the room.

I found out later that the Engineer was very familiar with the "Ghost." According to him, he has heard footsteps in the building when he knows he is alone.

As for me, it was just plain creepy, and I keep telling myself that it was just a structural issue. . . .

It seems to me that being in a dark room at night in an abandoned house without a hearing aid is sensory deprivation. Under the conditions that he described, he could have had an auditory hallucination due to sensory deprivation.

The 'Engineer' could have experienced hallucinations caused by sensory deprivation if he walked around alone at night.

http://www.wired.com/2009/10/hallucinations/
‘Psychologists stuck 19 healthy volunteers into a sensory-deprivation room, completely devoid of light and sound, for 15 minutes. Without the normal barrage of sensory information flooding their brains, many people reported experiencing visual hallucinations, paranoia and a depressed mood.
“This is a pretty robust finding,” wrote psychiatrist Paul Fletcher of the University of Cambridge, who studies psychosis but was not involved in the study. “It appears that, when confronted by lack of sensory patterns in our environment, we have a natural tendency to superimpose our own patterns.’

http://mindhacks.com/2009/10/19/hallucinations-in-sensory-deprivation-after-15-minutes/
‘Hallucinations, paranoid thoughts and low mood were reported more often after sensory deprivation for both groups but, interestingly, people already who had a tendency to have hallucinations in everyday life had a much greater level of perceptual distortion after leaving the chamber than the others.
This study complements research published in 2004 that found that visual hallucinations could be induced in healthy participants just by getting them to wear a blindfold for 96 hours.’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_deprivation
‘short-term sessions of sensory deprivation are described as relaxing and conducive to meditation; however, extended or forced sensory deprivation can result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations,[2] bizarre thoughts, and depression.’

Some people don’t believe that sensory deprivation causes hallucinations. They think is connects you to the spirit world. So maybe these haints aren’t specific to the building.

http://www.crystalinks.com/visionquest.html
‘vision quest may include long walks in uninhabited, monotonous areas (tundra, inland, mountain); fasting; sleep deprivation; being closed in a small room (e.g. igloo). The technique may be similar to sensory deprivation to a rite of cleansing and purification. One objective is to commune with the other side.’

I still don’t understand why he left his hearing aid behind. He he is in an empty room. He should want to hear what he is stepping on.

Maybe it is as simple as he was sleeping. He may have been on a marching sleep. Soldiers on the march can sleep while marching. He was sleepy, in a dark room where he couldn’t hear anything. How did he manage to stay awake?

 

[Daylightstar]

...
Maybe it is as simple as he was sleeping. He may have been on a marching sleep. Soldiers on the march can sleep while marching. He was sleepy, in a dark room where he couldn’t hear anything. How did he manage to stay awake?

He switches on the light, crosses 60 foot in a lit space, looks at the showers and then crosses that 60 foot back after his realization that the light switch is at the end from which he entered, under lit conditions, when the creaking s supposed to have happened.

He may have been tired, it doesn't appear to me he was sleeping. The creaking was claimed to occur for 6-7 seconds and to come towards him.
The creaking may have been hallucinatory or just the creaks moving towards him may have been hallucinatory, or both.

Any hallucinatory effects through lack of suggested need for hearing aid might certainly be interesting.
How much signal deprivation did the op really suffer by crossing the 60 foot lit space twice?

 

[Daylightstar]

Actually, the first thing to do would be to establish the creaking of the floor actually happening well after it has been walked on.
How would we go about ruling out mundane explanations if the creaking does occur as per the op and what if the creaking repeatedly does not occur when trying to establish it's occurrence?

In addition to that, would such investigation be necessary if the op would have abandoned his ghost suggestion and now would rather think the moving creaks are in fact a rather interesting but necessarily mundane occurrence?

 

[Darwin123]

He switches on the light, crosses 60 foot in a lit space, looks at the showers and then crosses that 60 foot back after his realization that the light switch is at the end from which he entered, under lit conditions, when the creaking s supposed to have happened.

He may have been tired, it doesn't appear to me he was sleeping. The creaking was claimed to occur for 6-7 seconds and to come towards him.
The creaking may have been hallucinatory or just the creaks moving towards him may have been hallucinatory, or both.

Any hallucinatory effects through lack of suggested need for hearing aid might certainly be interesting.
How much signal deprivation did the op really suffer by crossing the 60 foot lit space twice?

It was probably not sensory deprivation. You are right and I was wrong.

However, I still have problems with his hearing problem. For instance, how exactly did he know the direction of the footsteps?

I don't think people with loss of hearing have all that much ability to determine the direction of sound. A person with only one functioning ear can't determine the direction of a sound at all.

High pitched sounds, like creaking, are located by the differential sensation on the two separate ears. It helps in this case to nod the head. Low pitched sounds are located by detecting the phase difference of the sound in the two separate ears. These tricks only work if both ears are working. Further, a person needs practice locating a sound even if both ears are working. If he spent most of his time listening with a hearing aid, his interpretation of sound would be very different without the hearing aid.


Here is what he said:
'I stopped. However, the floorboards did not stop creaking. For about 6-7 seconds, the creaking sound came towards me as if someone was walking across the floor, following me.'

Was he looking at the spot where the sound 'came' from? He didn't tell us what he was looking at when he heard the sound. My guess is that he looked at the floor just because it was the only thing he could see.

I now hypothesize a type of confirmation bias. The floor boards were constantly creaking. He falsely attributed the creaking to his walking, so he ignored it until he stopped. When he stopped, he continued to hear the floor creaking. He was surprised that the creaking was not caused by his walking. He subconsciously assumed that every sound he heard came from that spot on the floor where his eyes rested. He scanned the room from far to near end. Thus, he heard the sound coming toward him.

 

[Daylightstar]

Then I wonder whether his hearing is affected in both ears (equally)?

...
I now hypothesize a type of confirmation bias. The floor boards were constantly creaking. He falsely attributed the creaking to his walking, so he ignored it until he stopped. When he stopped, he continued to hear the floor creaking. He was surprised that the creaking was not caused by his walking. He subconsciously assumed that every sound he heard came from that spot on the floor where his eyes rested. He scanned the room from far to near end. Thus, he heard the sound coming toward him.

That sounds even more mundane and likely then the depressed floorboards resettling
If only the op would return and assist with more information.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Well, I think they are an option, just not as described here. The first thing to do is to rule out mundane explanations (which we can't do over the internet, and may be impossible even by revisiting the site, due to things such as the potential for ambient differences which would stop the effect from happening on a revisit). Then we'd need to define exactly what relevant characteristics a "ghost" has, how we can distinguish one from the other potential non-mundane explanations you've mentioned (as well as the others that you haven't), to work out a way to empirically test for those characteristics, then perform those tests in a way which doesn't allow for human bias.

It'd be a lot of work, sure, but there's a million dollars for anybody who could, and it'd open up whole new branches of physics and fundamentally change our understanding of the universe. Worth the effort for anybody who genuinely believes in ghosts, I'd have thought.

I have had too many experiences where weird things happen. Only a couple were in the dark of night so to speak. I have met with and questioned people who claim see spirits. Some were quite solid down-to-earth people.

The mundane just does not come close to explaining the phenomena. While I am prepared to admit that the mind is subject to hallucination, it is hard to believe that one has to use this in situation after situation.

I could understand this explanation if there were non-supernatural examples as well. Such as "The tree just jumped in front of me your honor, and I swerved to avoid it and hit another tree on the side of the road."

The anecdotes are rare, and for the most part do not repeat. I get on with my life, and the laws of physics (and my sanity) seem quite solid.

When I was a teenager and also in my twenties I experienced a few isolated instances of "Alice In Wonderland" syndrome. I only found out recently that it has been studied and documented. I knew that my mind was undergoing a dramatic change in perspective, and that it would not last long. At no time did I think this was supernatural. I have no idea what the "mundane" explanation is.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Alferd_Packer:

Did you hear "creaking" sounds only? Or were there also "footsteps" or "footfalls"?

 

[Pixel42]

I have had too many experiences where weird things happen.

How many is too many? 5? 10? 50? How many experiences which you don't have sufficient information to immediately explain do you need to have before you feel justified in invoking the supernatural?

While I am prepared to admit that the mind is subject to hallucination, it is hard to believe that one has to use this in situation after situation.

It's a good job that faulty/mistaken/insufficient/misunderstood perceptions + imagination suffices for the vast majority of such situations then, isn't it?

 

[Nucular]

Hey PS, I'm enjoying reading your thoughtful posts.

While I am prepared to admit that the mind is subject to hallucination, it is hard to believe that one has to use this in situation after situation.

<snip>

and the laws of physics (and my sanity) seem quite solid.

These sorts of approaches to understanding weird experiences can be quite hard for some to swallow. But it's very important to note that a psychological approach to understanding experiences which seem paranormal isn't (always) talking about full-on hallucinations or anything to do with someone's sanity; nor do they seek to apply a 'special' set of psychological phenomena for anything 'unexplained'.

I find it more useful to think about in terms of how the mind works, and what it's there to actually do. One of the reasons I'm so interested in other people's odd experiences is that often it's the experiences reported as 'odd' which show us how the mind's normal function can sometimes get stuff wrong.

It can all be a bit counterintuitive - largely because the instrument which has collated its data into a particular experience is the very same one we then have to use to analyse that experience. I mean the brain, obviously.

Brains are not computers. They have evolved, not to help us think clearly and logically about things, nor to simply process information; but to help us (or more specifically, our ancestors) survive and reproduce. Oddly, this doesn't necessarily imply accuracy; just usefulness.

To use an old example, our species did most of its recent evolving in a world in which big, fierce creatures waited behind rocks and in the shadows to eat us. They hide from us; we have to try to figure out if they're there or not before we walk on. So, our senses send our brains a bunch of data, and our brains put all that data together to create a subjective experience which will influence our behaviour. In this sort of situation, I'm sure you can see that a decent protective system will not necessarily strive for accuracy; it will tend towards caution. The simple reason being that the two possible sorts of errors that might happen in this situation have very different outcomes: perceive a danger where there is none, and you'll probably just go a different way around and think nothing more of it; fail to perceive a danger where there is one, and you'll get eaten.

This sort of tendency is one of lots of 'cognitive biases' that have been identified, and which underpins the way our brains work in any situation. We have built-in biases which are designed to help us function in a group; to help us protect our own beliefs against new ones; to help us create a coherent narrative out of past experiences so we have a way of approaching future ones; to recognise patterns we'd do better to think are there than not (faces, sounds, meaning); to create memories which remain useful; etc. etc.

The basic point is that this stuff applies to all situations, not just ones which are interesting or weird. If I were to attempt to tell someone about this thread tomorrow, my account would inevitably be littered with inaccuracies; not random ones, but my own *biased* ones. Not consciously biased, just biased. I'd probably overestimate my own contribution to the discussion; underestimate the role my own emotion played in my posts; and would describe my own arguments much more favourably than I would everyone else's. Not cos I'm a liar, but because that's how brains work.

It's also worth emphasising that even when we're talking about actual hallucinations, there's no reason to think that mental illness is implied. Hallucinatory perceptions are often a normal - even positive - aspect of some people's experience; a huge amount of people with no other reason to think that mental illness might be a factor report having experienced sensory disturbance at some point in their lives. Inevitably, we can add to that number the amount of people who have, but don't realise it, or chose not to say.

Anyway, brains are not computers. Our consciousness is constructed moment-to-moment and is not a 'window on the outside world'; memories are not video recordings. These natural misconceptions work in the same way as well: they're usually fine as working models for day-to-day use; they're just wrong, that's all.

I hope you can see why we on this forum might therefore have no problem considering the possibility that every single one of the weird experiences you and your correspondents have had could be in some way inaccurately remembered and/or reported.

It's also why the scientific method is a great way to approach weird experiences - or any phenomena at all, weird or not. It's just a way of ruling out, as far as possible, our collective fallibility as humans.

 

[PartSkeptic]

Hey PS, I'm enjoying reading your thoughtful posts.

Great. I get on some serious skeptical forums to find out what the "mundane" explanations could be, and if they could fit some of the situations I have encountered.

I find it more useful to think about in terms of how the mind works, and what it's there to actually do. One of the reasons I'm so interested in other people's odd experiences is that often it's the experiences reported as 'odd' which show us how the mind's normal function can sometimes get stuff wrong.

It is one matter to listen to another person describing an experience, and a very different matter to undergo such an experience personally.

One such experience was to visit a church where “spirits” were inside a room. The person taking me told me little except that she and about few others could see them at any time, and they had been there for a few years. I could not see them. I could feel a containing “wall” at the door. I could put my hand in and out and describe where is started and ended (about 9-12 inches thick). This is in a brightly lit passage and room in the evening (no drinking beforehand). The other person told me she could see what I was feeling.

How did my brain “sense” what I can only describe as “cold”? It was not fleeting or vague, and it was as repeatable as putting my hand in a basin of cool water.

Brains are not computers. They have evolved, not to help us think clearly and logically about things, nor to simply process information; but to help us (or more specifically, our ancestors) survive and reproduce. Oddly, this doesn't necessarily imply accuracy; just usefulness.

Our brains have evolved with functionality for incredible accuracy and logic. I accept that our brains are capable of “constructing” a scenario from tiny bits of information, and that it aids survival, and that we can get an inaccurate scenario due to the necessary bias and assumptions.

When the person is relaxed and not in a life-threatening situation (dark stormy night with wild animals in the jungle), I suggest that the mind is less likely to fill in the blanks. And with maturity comes less tendency to jump to conclusions.

What about people who have the ability to look at figures and do complicated arithmetic operations and get it right all the time? Or people who can listen to a tune and replicate it accurately on the piano? People can knit while talking to others and not get one stitch wrong. Our brains are capable of amazing accuracy.

I hope you can see why we on this forum might therefore have no problem considering the possibility that every single one of the weird experiences you and your correspondents have had could be in some way inaccurately remembered and/or reported.

It's also why the scientific method is a great way to approach weird experiences - or any phenomena at all, weird or not. It's just a way of ruling out, as far as possible, our collective fallibility as humans.

I am sceptical of my own experiences, and more so with regard to others. I found that many months later I had to phone the person I referred to in the incident above and ask if it even happened, never mind happening as I recall it. I question all reality, but allow for most possibilities. If the supernatural only occurs at random unplanned times and places when the mind is not preoccupied then those conditions are a bit hard to replicate using scientific method. I was puzzled as to why the church-goers did not invite scientists, but perhaps they were afraid of negative publicity. Most frauds love publicity.

One may have to take the anecdotes, remove obvious fraud, then the mundane and the vague, and look for patterns. If mind-science can explain them, fine. But we are far from a precise enough understanding, and I do not buy a broad-brushed “fallacy of the mind”. If the supernatural exists, there should be some sort of rationality to it, and not just random unintelligible noise.

With maturity and interacting with others in different countries and cultures I learned that it was hard to say “it is not possible” even in engineering discussions. Truth is stranger than fiction.

The “we of this forum” have a rather unique bias that I think many/most/nearly all (Pixel42 will correct me if am wrong) do not compensate adequately for. It is the assumption that science has all the answers and only has a few gaps to fill in.

The biggest assumption is about possible explanations as to the origins of the universe. Recent research I did for myself shows me that the mystery of the origin of the universe is not as cut and dried (founded in provable fact) as some popular science/atheist authors would have us believe. One could say that (many?) followers of this forum are like church-goers who get positive self-reinforcement of a belief system that excludes the supernatural as an option?

 

[Donn]

The “we of this forum” have a rather unique bias … It is the assumption that science has all the answers and only has a few gaps to fill in.

This is a strawman. I'll be generous and grant that you've not been told this before: science does not have all the answers, if it did it would stop.

The biggest assumption is about possible explanations as to the origins of the universe. Recent research I did for myself shows me that the mystery of the origin of the universe is not as cut and dried (founded in provable fact) as some popular science/atheist authors would have us believe.

More of the same. Every credible source I've ever read makes no bones about what is not known. It's okay not to know stuff.

One could say that (many?) followers of this forum are like church-goers who get positive self-reinforcement of a belief system that excludes the supernatural as an option?

Leaving aside the question of why you'd prefer a system based on hearsay and fraud, how is disbelief a belief?

You fool me once, my shame. You fool me twice, my bad. You fool me three times, I adapt. You fool me four times, I realize the problem. You start to fool me again, I ask for evidence. So: ghosts. Evidence?

 

[PartSkeptic]

To Nucular:

Location: Brane 6, Brahman's Dream

I just saw your location. I might be on Wave Z in the same Dream. We might just be in a simulation in an advanced Universe in the umpteenth cycle, and they are messing with our minds. Pure entertainment, having solved all the mysteries?

 

[baron]

When the person is relaxed and not in a life-threatening situation (dark stormy night with wild animals in the jungle), I suggest that the mind is less likely to fill in the blanks.

On balance, it's more likely. Even mild sensory deprivation / relaxation can cause hallucinations after a relatively short time period. Read Oliver Sacks for more information and explanations.

 

[Resume]

The biggest assumption is about possible explanations as to the origins of the universe. Recent research I did for myself shows me that the mystery of the origin of the universe is not as cut and dried (founded in provable fact) as some popular science/atheist authors would have us believe. One could say that (many?) followers of this forum are like church-goers who get positive self-reinforcement of a belief system that excludes the supernatural as an option?

I'm skeptical of this research of yours and the conclusions you've so broadly and smugly drawn.

Care to elaborate?

 

[PartSkeptic]

I'm skeptical of this research of yours and the conclusions you've so broadly and smugly drawn.

Care to elaborate?

Will do. Life is getting in the way at the moment. Multiple commitments. Should have some time tomorrow to post a list. (BTW- Not smug at all. I have no interest in point scoring. Just like to get to the truth.)

 

[PartSkeptic]

On balance, it's more likely. Even mild sensory deprivation / relaxation can cause hallucinations after a relatively short time period. Read Oliver Sacks for more information and explanations.

Thanks for the reference. I will follow up.

Note I said a relaxed situation. Not a lack of sensory input. But you make a good point which I take note of.

My point is that the mind is able to "hear that small voice" which is how I think God/spirit communication might take place.

 

[Donn]

But how is the mind to certify that small source?

 

[Resume]

One should be more than partially skeptical about the voices one hears inside one's head.