Are you one of those people who sees ghosts everywhere? Have you ever visited a local supposed haunted location looking for some quick thrills? Perhaps you're even of the belief that you're very home is haunted, I know I used to be. Maybe you enjoy the rush of seeking out these experiences, if you're that type of person this may not be the post for you, I'd hate to kill your fun. If you - like I used to - hate these perceived paranormal experiences and fear them, then maybe I can ease your suffering a bit.

Full disclosure, I spent a long time writing this the other day only for it to be deleted right after I posted it. So this is a rewrite.

      People have believed in ghosts since the beginning of recorded history. In ancient times, without modern science to alter our thinking, there was simply no question that the human 'soul' survived physical death, it wasn't a hotly debated topic as it is today. The existence of spirits/ghosts was no different. While there were variations from culture to culture of course. It was widely believed that if someone received an improper burial, died in a particularly horrific manner, or had some sort of unfinished business, they would oftentimes return in spirit form. This was almost always portrayed as a bad thing. and created a pervasive fear of the dead which has even carried over to a certain degree into today. Although modern science and our understanding of the world has painted a different picture, which I think even the most staunch of believers should look into. A lot of the things which get chalked up to the supernatural are actually perfectly explainable phenomena.

A Switzerland Study

      In a Switzerland study conducted in an attempt to prove that ghostly apparitions are all in the human mind, they employed the usage of sensory confusion in order to spark the perception of the paranormal. The results were thought provoking to say the least. In the study they hooked the subjects up to a mechanical arm which they controlled with their index finger, this in turn sent signals to another robotic limb behind them to stroke their back (They were also blindfolded). Which gave the neat illusion that they were stroking their own back. However once the arm behind them was put out of sync with their index finger (about 500 milliseconds) the experience turned dark, the subjects immediately began feeling as if they were being in drawn into the arm behind them and felt the presence of 2 or more "ghosts" within the room watching them. This at the very least strengthened the long suspected theory that ghost experiences are constructed within our minds.

The Curious case of Vic Tandy

      Vic Tandy (1955 - 2005) was a British engineer and lecturer for information technology at Conventry University. During the 1980s he found himself in a very unsettling position. He had begun work at a research lab for a medical manufacturing company which had a reputation for being haunted. From his first day on the job, he began experiencing some very disconcerting things. He felt very depressed whenever he entered the laboratory, was cold yet could not stop sweating, and would see ghostly figures in his peripheral vision which promptly disappeared once he tried to get a closer look. He couldn't find a moment of peace without feeling as if someone was watching him, and it began to take a toll on his psyche. One day in particular he was polishing his fencing sword when he realized that it would continuously vibrate, even without his intervention. 

Quick science lesson, every sound perceived by the human ear exists on a spectrum between 20 hz and 20,000 hz. Anything below 20 hz is called infrasound while anything above 20,000 hz is called ultrasound. Lets take it one step further (any fans of Dc speedster The Flash should be familiar with this concept). Every object naturally vibrates at a specific frequency due to said objects physical parameters such as size and weight, which is called that objects 'Resonance Frequency'. This is how the scarlet speedster can phase through walls, by matching this frequency.

      Now when you get frequencies which match that of human body parts, wacky things can start to happen. Tandy began to suspect that there was an infrasound frequency somewhere in the laboratory which was somehow contributing to what he was experiencing. He found that there was indeed such a frequency within the room emitting from a fan near his desk, where the negative effects were at their strongest. This sound was at a frequency of about 19 hz, approximately the resonance frequency of the human eye. He theorized that this is what was causing the supposed ghostly haunting he had been perceiving in the room. He went on to recreate this many times over, visiting multiple supposedly haunted locations and discovering similar infrasound frequencies. Effectively proving that matching the resonance frequency of the human senses - like our eyes - causes hallucinations which are often mistaken for the supernatural.

My Personal Experience

      For as long as I can remember my family used to swear up and down that every house we lived in was haunted. This was mostly due to me and my brother perpetuating this time and time again while we were young (8 years apart). Whatever the reason was, we were convinced that there were spirits following us from house to house. We always saw them as adult figures. Usually Native Americans, as we were told that our first home was built on an "Indian burial ground", until one night this all changed. I was probably in 4th or 5th grade and as usual was lying awake in bed trying to get some sleep, yet struggling because I was terrified. I remember this particular night vividly, as like usual I was listening to people stomp up and down our stairs, laughing, shouting, and speaking what sounded like menacing threats in some type of foreign language. Then something which I'll always remember happened, I saw the figure of a young boy run across my open door.

      After making a big fuss and waking my whole family, something interesting happened. From that day on, nobody saw adult sized apparitions or heard mature sounding voices. Instead my parents and brother began seeing a young boy walking around, hearing him laugh, and would chalk up every malfunctioning toy of mine to him playing with them. See what I'm getting at here? Up until I got the idea of a young boy in their heads, nobody had ever seen one. Yet once I did, that's all they ever perceived, because they were expecting to.

      As the years went on and I grew older, I began to question my previous experiences with ghosts, and as a result stopped seeing them around ever corner. Eventually I was nearly at the point where I did not believe in them at all, and once I stopped talking about them all the time, my parents stopped seeing them too. That is until one night right after I graduated... During my senior year of highschool and the months following it I was sleeping on a fold-able futon, which I always slept on in it's couch state. I'll picture it below.

      One night I was awoken by it violently shaking, like someone was pushing the fold-able portion of it up and down repeatedly, and in my more than half asleep state I began asking "Who's under there." After the cessation of this, I fell back asleep mildly bewildered. I remember having multiple nightmares over the course of the night until I woke up once more no longer laying down, but sitting on my computer chair across the room talking to myself. This terrified me, and for the next month or two I was once again convinced that our house was wickedly haunted. As a result, I was paranoid again ducking around corners seeing apparitions and hearing strange noises everywhere. That is until one day I watched a YouTube video which put everything into perspective.

      It's a long video so I'll briefly summarize it. It consists of two brothers and a friend of theirs discussing their old ghost stories. The brothers believe in ghosts while their friend does not. In the end he ends up convincing one of the brothers that ghosts do not exist using the same logic which had been floating around my head for the past couple of years prior to my viewing of this. Every ghost experience I have ever had was either A. When I was a young child, B. When I was half asleep, or C. When I was a bit shook up and expecting to something to happen.

      That sealed the deal for me, ghosts are all in my head. I realized how for the past couple of months I was once again just psyching myself out, and since then I have not had another "supernatural" experience. I'd encourage anyone troubled by experiences such as mine to research more into the topic, and perhaps watch that video. As I sleep much easier at night now, and no longer fear my own shadow. Of course, if you firmly believe in the existence of the paranormal, there isn't much I can tell you. This is just a realization which improved my quality of life.