Psychology Addict # 33 | Visits from Lost Loved Ones & Out-of-Body Experiences
Something close to the following dialogue took place in my bedroom, in our old house, around 26 years ago, when I was 10 years of age, and really mean to my little brother. It was evening time and for reasons that I no longer remember I just wanted him out of my sight:
Abigail: Go to your bedroom!
Little brother (already with a crying face): Please let me stay.
Abigail: NO! I will take you to your bedroom. Let’s go.
Little brother: No. Pleeease.... There is a woman sitting on my bed. She has no arms and keeps staring at me.
I don’t recall what my exact thoughts were after that, but I seemed to have accepted it as a good enough reason to let him stay and play memory game with me. Also, from then onwards, I became quite wary of my brother’s bedroom as well as more compassionate towards him.
That I’m aware of, this was the first ‘supernatural’ story I ever encountered, but it was far from being the last. From narratives of lost loved ones coming back in the form of black birds, to visions of the fallen angel himself, I seem to have heard it all! I am equally curious and inquisitive about such accounts. However, what interests me the most is how the people who experience these situations make sense of them.
Nonetheless, in this 2 (or 3) part series I am going to discuss how neuropsychology and psychiatry make sense of such experiences. Still, do get ready for a bunch of spooky stories! 👻
When lost loved ones come back to pay a visit
I saw her [the deceased wife] first on the very day of the funeral, an hour after she was buried.
Crime and Punishment, p. 323
It is a pity to think that the phenomenon of *hallucination* has fallen prey to the judgment of the Western world; where many regard it to be purely a consequence of superstitious beliefs, ignorance or even of a mental illness. But, it appears that experiencing hallucinations is something that comes with having a brain (at least a mammal’s one). And in some cases, such as in bereavement, they are regarded as a benign, coping mechanism that helps individuals to deal with the loss of a loved one. In these situations, they normally take place in the visual or auditory forms almost as if they were a remedy for a painful yearning.
The posthumous visits of Mr. Toben
I suppose this explains the months during which Mr. Toben came to visit his widowed wife at night, just before she fell asleep in bed. She told me that every night, after her prayer, he came and sat on the sofa-chair right in front of their former bed, and stayed there with a smile on his face waiting for her to fall asleep. Until the day his second heart attack claimed his life, Mr. Toben and his wife had been married for just over 30 years. His posthumous visits only lasted around 14 months, though. Either that or Mrs. Toben was too sleepy to notice his presence (following the arrival of her third grandchild she practically moved in with her younger daughter to help around).
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmacgJR3eqUk3ZbUubNdKmmeYNHvn5csJtwbyN34gxsSby/Primary_auditory_cortex_and_Auditory_association_areas-1.jpg)
The brain hallucinates in different ways. Researchers have arrived to these findings through monitoring electrical impulses and metabolic activities through brain imaging while individuals hallucinate. In cases where people hallucinate faces, for example, an abnormal activation is seen in the inferior temporal cortex, in the same way that those who hallucinate voices would have the same sort of activation in the regions involved in processing speech.
In what I consider a rather thoughtful study, Dr. Dewi Rees found, after interviewing 293 widowed individuals, that nearly half of them had experienced hallucinations of their deceased husband or wife for years, some of them up to a decade 1. The same proportion was reported equally by men and women, and higher incidence was noticed in those who had had longer, happier marriages. Also, I hasten to add here that such occurrences have been seen in populations of different religions, ethnicity, social and cultural backgrounds 2.
What I found particularly touching about these studies was the fact that the individuals experiencing the hallucinations did not feel comfortable about sharing the events even with family and close friends. Well, indeed, Mrs. Toben’s children reported worries about her having dementia; this only upset her even more and prevented her from sharing her feelings with them.
My Spontaneous OBE experience
As one abandons worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the self, who lives within.
The Bhagavad Gita, [2:22]
To date I have never experienced visual hallucinations. However, I had a couple of rather unpleasant out-of-body experiences (OBEs) in the past. Even though they happened a long time ago, thinking about them still sends a shiver down my spine. The first one was when I was around 18, and it was as frightening as it was brief. I was sleeping, and in the middle of the night I ‘suddenly’ found myself “floating” around my bedroom. I was very aware I wasn’t in my body and desperately wanted to return to it. I have never been a superstitious person; so, back them I just assumed it had been another bad dream. Nowadays, after coming across the literature I have explored, I believe that was an OBE hallucination.
But, look what I said: “I was very aware I wasn’t in my body and desperately wanted to return to it”. Isn’t our sense and certainty of embodiment rather interesting? For example, we are adamant that our self is located in our brain, and that we inhabit our bodies. Our bodies: the vehicle through which we navigate the world! Well, I suppose that body schema is partly responsible for this. Anyways, back to the subject.
While OBEs have been investigated more in-depth in cases of mental (e.g. DID) and brain disorders (e.g schizophrenia), subsequent to a series of interviews and questionnaires Blanke and colleagues concluded that, in the general population, more or less 5% of people have experienced it (some studies suggest a percentage as high as 34%). In addition, they also state that this is something that has been reported in many different cultures across the world, and it can be induced in healthy individuals through robotic devices and VR during laboratory experiments 3.
Not a new thing
Out-of-body accounts have been around for hundreds of years. However, it was only brought to the scientific arena in the 1960s, by the British psychologist Celia Green, who evaluated firsthand stories of over 400 individuals who had experienced it. Subsequent research on spontaneous OBEs suggest that this is a phenomenon resulted from brain hypoxia, low blood supply to the brain, failure of certain cortical structures or mental dissociation. Perhaps, this explains why such experiences are more often reported by those who have been in surgeries, accidents and so forth. In other words, in scenarios that highlight the supernatural element even further. But that really, it seems to be nothing more nothing less than a ‘brain glitch’.
The notion that hallucinatory events are in part responsible for our popular myths, art , and even religious beliefs dates back to the 1840’s, when Boismont dedicated a chapter discussing the complex relationship between hallucinations, psychology, religion and morality in his medical book entitled Hallucinations; or, The Rational History of Apparitions, Visions, Dreams, Ecstasy, Magnetism and Somnambulism.
If you are a big Lewis Carrol fan, for example, you probably know about his visual migraines; and that they occurred before he created his first Alice in Wonderland book. Drawings and writings in his diary entries prior to 1864 provide the evidence for this. Back then, Carroll was formally diagnosed by his eye doctor with ‘disturbances due to eye strain’ 4. But, based on both his and his ophthalmologist’s records it is now accepted that Carrol suffered from Todd’s Syndrome, a neurological disorder now popularly known as Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, which prompts episodes of disorientation and distorted perceptions. So, one can only imagine the role hallucinatory phenomena might have played in the rise of supernatural beliefs.
And another ghost visited my little brother
As for my little brother, he did experience another - less frightening - supernatural event. He saw a gigantic rabbit by his wardrobe. He told me ‘He is your size Abi!’, while gesturing the magnitude of the ghostly image with his two hands. That happened two days after his little rabbit, Dobi, died unexpectedly. In spite of that (or because of it, actually), at a very young age, we arrived to the serious conclusion that his bedroom was definitely haunted.
Reference List:
Brierre de Boismont, A. (1845), Hallucinations; or, The rational history of apparitions, visions, dreams ecstasy, magnetism and somnambulism. Philadelphia, Lindsay and Blakiston.
Blanke, O. et al. (2009), ‘Leaving body and life behind. Out-of-body and near-death experiences.’, in Laureys, Steven, Tononi and Giulio (eds.) The neurology of consciousness, London, Academic Publishers. pp. 303-325.
Dostoevssky, F.M. (1866) Crime and punishement. London, Penguin Classics.
Easwaran, E. (2007) The Bhagavad Gita. California, The blue mountain center of meditation.
Podol, K., Robinson, D. (1999), Lewis Carrols’s migraine experiences, The Lancet, Vol. 353, No. 9161., p.1366.
Rees, W. D. (1971), The hallucinations of widowhood.British Medical Journal, 4:37-41.
Sacks, O. (2012) Hallucinations. New York, Knopf.
Image source Pixabay & Winkimedia: 1 – I created with bannersnack,2,3,4,5
Dear Reader,
I have shared with you some of my spooky stories. Now, I am wondering if you have ever experienced any of the situations discussed here! If so, how did you make sense of it?
I hope this post has demystified some of the events that are often regarded as supernatural 😊
I wish you all the best always ❤
Specially Dedicated To
- First and foremost @zest (my Steemit big brother), who patiently listened to me rambling about this topic in more than one occasion, and kindly shared his views with me from an anthropological perspective.
- Our clever @ruth-girl, who asked me the smartest question about the afterlife someone has ever asked me.
- My dear @mcfarhat, who said “I would love to see you dedicate a post about ghosts too :D”
- And finally, @lemouth, who terrified me when he told me “But ghosts exist!”. However, the lack of a blackboard impeded him from proving this to me through quantum chromodynamics equations. I was secretly pleased about this shortfall, though.
Hi @abigail-dantes
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There was a period of my life (about 10 years ago) when I was really stressed for a particular matter. I guess all this stress somehow manifested in a series of sleep disorders/problems, starting with auditory hallucinations, then sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming and so many other neat things. One of those times I also had an OBE experience which I found it to be quite... exciting :) At first I decided to "explore" my new found ability but only moments later I chickened out and decided to return back to my body!
The sleep problems and weird experiences continued (on a daily basis!) and at some point I thought I was getting crazy and I was about to ask medical help, since schizo runs in our DNA. But before doing that I decided to do a bit of googling only to find out thousands of other people had the same problems and essentially I had entered a cycle. Everytime I went to bed I was getting anxious that I might have a weird experience, and that anxiety was largely what caused the sleep problems! The peace of mind that I am not crazy just stressed before going to bed was enough to break the cycle. I do get some weird experiences every now and then but nothing serious :)
Wow @trumpman! Yes, you see ... my two OBE experiences took place in a particularly stressful time of my life too. Back then I also had horrendous night terrors. My other OBE was what neuropsychology calls autoscopy. Again, it was in the middle of the night. I woke up and sat up on my bed, facing the end of the bed. Just to see myself there standing staring back at me. That was super surreal! It was also very brief.
Most of the accounts I have seen in the literature start with what you said, people find it exciting at first. But then, get frightened eventually!
I should challenge you to write a post about some of the weird experiences you go through every now and then. What do you think about that? One post! It is a challenge. And don't forget to tag me 😎
What about a series post? :D
I say YES! 😉
Tea with mint - the best soothing before bedtime.
Tea as in caffeine? Before bed?
Yes. Tea based on peppermint acts as a soothing.
Awesome idea for a series. I haven't had any hallucinations/unexplained phenomena, but my Grandfather always swore that an apartment he lived in before I was born was haunted. He was so certain that I've never been able to shake the belief that ghosts exist. Still, I agree that hallucinations account for most ghost/alien/whatever sightings.
Hello @tking77798 :)
Oh! Your grandpa might have had amazing spooky stories to tell then! 😃 I do find that the more skeptical someone is, the least they are likely to experience hallucinations. Or, are they that skeptical exactly because they never experienced such things? 😕
I wish you a great weekend.
Please send a little kiss to that lovely dog of yours ...
😘
Will do!
This sent chills down my spine, I think I remember experiencing some weird hallucinations as a child, but it's been just too long ago to remember details.
One other thing I experienced more recently, which might come under this category is what I believed to have been 2 panic attacks, a feeling of being disconnected from oneself and not a pleasant experience. I haven't experience a repeat for a few years.
Hello @terrylovejoy :)
Oh! Thank you so much for taking the time once again to read my writings. It truly makes me smile!
In my family, that I know of, only my brother a cousin reported these experiences when they were kids.. I do know some individuals are more susceptible to this sort of phenomenon. But, I shall look into these experiences during childhood with more detail.
Panic attacks can be equally frightening, for sure. And depending on how they were experienced they might be categorized as hallucinations, particularly when there is a sense of disconnection from the self. I know that in clinical settings, during cases of extreme anxiety (and sadness), some clients say they see people's faces in distorted shapes.
I wish you a great weekend and all the best always! :)
Nicely written as always. I am not sure I've had any OBEs or hallucination before, though I use to be extremely scared whenever someone I know passed-on but not anymore.
More recently, I lost someone quite close to me and I had a series of dreams afterward; one of such dream, the deceased showed me the cause of her death which actually confirmed the suspicion that I have been harbouring that the doctor lied about the cause of death as spelled out in the death certificate. I am all against tampering with dead bodies in the name of autopsies by the way.
Where and when is the boundary between hallucination and dream drawn? I am really interested to know.
Thank you
Hello @gentleshaid :)
This is a complex question! But, in short, this has highly to do with the functional networks involved in each situation. During REM sleep, the activities of pre-frontal areas and its linked circuits are suspended. Whereas during hallucinations one is still responding to external sensory signals because some areas are still active (e.g planum temporale). I suppose that grossly speaking I could say this is down to the level of consciousness in each case; during sleep is considerably less than in hallucinations.
Thank you for your kind words & for taking the time to stop by ❤
Very interesting and well-written post! I hope your brother doesn't get haunted anymore.
I had a 'spontaneous OBE' years ago when I was 19. I couldn't sleep one night. I had heard that counting sheep helps, but that seemed silly. As I had just read the book 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull', I decided to count seagulls instead. After some time, my attention focused on one particlar seagull. In my mind, I moved closer and closer to him, until I could smell the sea, see his feathers move in the wind, and hear his seagull cries. I was intensely focused at this point.
Suddenly, an electric current pulsed through my body, like a switch had been turned on. I literally felt electric. Then my 'electric body' moved out from my physical body in the direction of past my head and out. I was flying... my awareness was outside my body...and I was scared as hell.
I had never heard or read about OBEs. I thought I was being 'possessed' or something haha. My panic, and my desire to be back in my body caused me to return back into it. After I 'clicked' back into the body, the electric switch flipped off.
I was baffled to say the least, always wondered about it.
Great post and topic, hope to see more.
Hello @mmo-mmo :)
What an incredibly beautiful OBE experience you have shared here with us. Well at least until you got scared! The way you mentioned how you focused on that singular thing (the seagull), just makes me think that you reached your OBE though meditation! But, I couldn't say that for sure because it also sound like you were falling asleep. This is a very common stage people report these experiences.
I do hope this post has clarified this topic a little bit for you :)
All the best & thank you for this amazing comment! Beautiful :D
Thank you for your kind reply. I had an even more strange experience in the Sahara desert, if you make it to my page one day. Looking ahead to your new posts!
:)
Hello, Abi. That is a good one. I don't know to what I should attribute my inability to remember dreams, have hallucinations or out of body experience. I choose to believe I'm probably too heavy to manage leaving my body anyway.
But I do have a ghost story that was bequeathed to me by my mother. She was about ten years old at the time. It was a cold harmattan morning in Enugu, a city in South Eastern Nigeria. My mom was sweeping the space in front of the house when her favourite aunt appeared from a distance, walking towards the house, dressed in her favourite flowery dress which my mother liked. With her was someone else my mother could not recognise. The most sensible thing for her to have done was run to her aunt. She didn't. Instead, she ran into the living room to tell her parents that her aunt came visiting from Lagos. Her father was just getting off the phone when she entered the room and her mother was crying: her aunt was in an accident and died instantly. That could not be! She ran outside to find that both women had changed direction and were heading towards an alley that led behind their house. But they were close enough for her to hear the older woman tell her aunt, "I told you that we should not have come here. Now, you can hear her crying!" To this, my mother's aunt replied, "I just wanted to see my little niece one last time."
My mother gave a chase but they had turned the corner before she could get to them and of course, they were gone :)
Say all you want about ghosts. I have never seen one, not even that of my beloved mother. I haven't even had a dream about her since she died. But her stories are gospel to me so if she says she saw her aunt, she must have seen her :) I don't know how to make any other sense of this one. What do you think?
Thank you, Abi. Only you make me tell these stories and I have missed reading from you.
Oh my dear @churchboy it is always so wonderful to hear from you. But let's address one important thing first! You have to promise me you are not going to be checking your phone while you're driving ever again :)
Also, this made me laugh ...
Now, I have to ask, how is that Coca-cola drinking of yours going? 🙃 I hope you are drinking it less and less and heading to a complete halt!
You have written this comment so beautifully it most felt like a short story. I just wanted it to continue! It is SO emotional (and spooky too!). This part had me placing my hand on my mouth and opening my eyes widely!
😯
But then, when I thought it could not get more emotional, you described the following:
Oh ... 😟
What do I think? I don't have the definite answer to whether ghosts exist or not. But one thing is for sure, no one can deny the fact these situations are very real indeed, for whoever goes through them 😊
Life over here is (thankfully) getting back to normal. It looks like I can start on weekly Friday posts again 😉
I missed you too! I wish you a week filled with accomplishments and peace!
❤
Oh, thank you so very much. I never really text while driving. That's why I look at the phone one last time before I go. I am glad you liked the story. My mom used to tell me lots of story and the above was the only ghost story she ever told me. I have never seen a ghost before and I have often wondered the meaning of these things.
You are too kind, Abi. Thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my comment. I am glad things are getting back to normal over there. Thank you and I hope to read your post again soon. Much love from me to you :)
Oh, and I have dealt with my coke addiction to a reasonable extent. My weight now has more to do with fitness than fatness. I have lost most of the fat but I am not addicted to lifting heavy weights. I wonder what it is with us that makes us trade one addiction with another!
hello dear @abigail-dantes I missed you, I'm glad to re-read your publications. Something similar happened to my brother many years ago but it was not with a relative but with a friend who lived near the house, who died drowned and the next day. that dead friend appeared to him in the room closing the door without letting him out, when asking him that if he was dreaming he did not know how to respond because for him it was like a reality not like a dream. For me, that is something terrifying others that are things of the beyond and for you what will it be?. thanks And regards
Hello @catire383 :)
Thank you for stopping by my dear! Well, I sustain that it might have been a visual hallucination. Particularly if your brother was emotional about the passing away of your friend. But, please note, I don't want to claim that the explanations I am presenting here are the ultimate true! As I said this is how neuropsychology explains such occurrences :)
All the best to you my dear.
Have a good evening.
@catire383. Has recibido el voto de MYTHOLOGYUPVOTE.
Gracias por confiar en nosotros.
My aunt just passed away last week & we attended her burial just this weekend. It was very heartbreaking for us that she left so soon,leaving behind my uncle and her three young children. I know that science can explain everything including different psychological phenomena but in these trying times,emotions and & feelings really matter and thats how our family will survive after this difficult time. Minutes after my aunt died a black moth appeared at the door of her hospital door & according to them they actually felt her presence even after she was announced dead. Her daughter even claimed that her mom always visits her in her dreams telling her that she's okey. My uncle often hallucinates about her telling his family that sometimes he can see her around the house in brief moments. When one passes away the people left behind may create coping mechanisms just to accept the sudden death of their loved one.
Oh @sakura1012 !
I am so sorry! When I read the first sentence of your comment my heart sank :( You are an enlightened, patient human being my dear; who knows that eventually the better times will come. Right now, I have no words that could possibly alleviate the pain your family is going through. But, I send you all my love and the best thoughts I have in hopes that you can accept this tragic event, rather than battle against it. It is a beautiful thing that your cousin has beautiful dreams of her assuring you all she is fine! Only after I understood my dad was no longer in suffering (after his death), I could move on and recover from the pain.
You take care of yourself my dear. Find that strength that lives within you to make your way towards the better days that will soon come.
May you all find peace.
Lots of love to you.
This is a very very interesting series Abi! :D
OBE sounds terrifying! I have never experienced anything like this, but I have spooky stories my grandma has told me and dreams that proved to be premonitions, especially one that terrified me and made me really worried of going to bed.
Allow me to explain in short: Almost a year after my grandfather's sudden death (pulmonary oedema and heart failure) I have a dream of him dressed in his suit and standing outside his sister's house (her two children lived next door on a two-storey building, her son on the ground floor and her daughter on the first floor). It all happens at night time. So my grandpa is standing outside, his nephew (his sister's son) is sitting on the balcony (on the ground floor) and a big wardrobe-box thing is blocking the window on the first floor, but there is a bright light beaming around the crack that marked that wardrobe's outline. I then hear a phone ringing, I find myself on the balcony where my grandpa's nephew was sitting and the moment the nephew stands up to go answer the phone I wake up because it was actually our phone ringing in the middle of the night. That was the wife of my grandpa's nephew informing us that her husband had just died of a heart attack. For a few months I was afraid to dream because of that (I was about 13-14 at the time). I still experience such dreams, they don't make sense, but they leave me with a weird feeling that something upsetting will happen on that day. I try not to worry about things I cannot control, but they do disturb me sometimes and I am in a bad mood for the rest of the day, which I think sounds reasonable.
I don't know how I came to dream of that, I think I had heard my mother say that my (now late) uncle had been in hospital for a check-up, because he had high blood pressure, but I cannot be 100% sure after so many years.
Other than this spooky story of mine, I have some of my grandmother's weird stories: Once my grandpa was hospitalized (prostate cancer, very very severe case with few chances of him surviving). My grandmother would stay in hospital with him day and night, worried, stressed and tired. At some point she was desperate, sitting outside his room in the hallway. Then she sees a woman (I can't remember if she was dressed in black or white), the woman touches grandma and tells her: "Don't worry, he will be allright" and then she goes away. My grandfather did get over his cancer, despite the odds being against him, he lived 18 more years after that, but my grandma never knew who that woman was.
Now, what can you call this? Hallucination? Oracle? Wishful thinking that made her see that woman? And was it out of pure luck that my grandpa was cured? I don't know, I am just thankful he made it and I got to know him for my first 13 years of my life.
And one last dream incident my mother has recently had (I'm not sure I should share this, but it was a strong and unexplained experience): She dreamed of her mother-in-law (my father's mother), who passed away in 2015 (cancer). She saw my late grandmother holding a baby girl, calling her with a name (which I will not share out of respect) and telling the baby how much she missed her and how happy she was that she could hold her again. When my mom woke up on that day she asked my father whether he ever had a sister and he replied that he did have a sister with the name my mum heard in her dream, who passed away when she was a baby. My mother never knew about it until that day.
This one could be explained if you consider scattered words in the family or rumors she might have heard and the fact that my mum could have guessed the baby's name because she knew my father's family tree and in Greece it is natural to name a baby after the grandparents.
I hope I did not bore you with all this "spookiness" from my family. And I will admit I am not sure I'd want to see spooky being totally demystified and explained in terms of chemistry and biology. Sometimes mysteries should remain mysteries, they allow us to believe, hope and wander.
I am looking forward to the next parts!! 😘💖
😳 And this is when I run out of material to support any scientific explanations for situations within this realm of experiences! I never had any premonitory experience, but I do understand why you would be upset about certain dreams and concerned for the day! It turns out premonition accounts are more common than I had initially imagined. This is the third one I have read on this feed! Very interesting ....
Now, this one gave goosbumps!
If I had to answer this question - under my limited knowledge - yes, I would say it was a visual hallucination. As a consequence of grandma's emotional state. How to explain granddad getting better? Well, I am afraid to say I don't have a better answer than coincidence :/
Oh! As sad as the dream of your mum holding the baby is; it is also a very touching story! 💖
You never bore me Ruth! And, as always, of course, you never fail to deliver your beautiful insights. This is both profound and poetic:
... and a notion that I respect very much!
Thank you for participating in our discussion with these most incredible and spooky family stories :)
Lots of love to you always!