First, they were aware of the sound of footsteps coming from the attic and the smell of an old-fashioned scent like rosewater. When plates started flying off the walls of the store but not breaking, the Magnusons were not alarmed and assumed it was Thomas passing on her displeasure at having someone take over her home.
Minnie Thomas, it seems, accepts them for the way they are managing the building, but has a sense of mischief. When visiting the attic for stock, Scott Magnuson is often tricked by the simple alarm system the couple uses to call them back down to the store. Of course when he rushes down to assist, the shop is empty! A psychic who recently visited the store with me remarked that Thomas was a playful character and she saw her watching us, curiously.
Soon a man with hob-nailed boots joined Thomas and the smell of beer was obvious. Had her ex-husband come back to visit and taunt her? Gail immigrated from England to the U. Originally a personal assistant, she had always had a passion for history and put this to good use six years ago by becoming a historical walking tour guide. She currently operates Breckenridge Tours with her partner Jamie, offering Ghost Tours, Strange but True and also living history tours.
Now more than ever, your financial support is critical to help us keep our communities informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having on our residents and businesses. Every contribution, no matter the size, will make a difference. That depends. Our spooky sightings, however, have certainly felt real. These seven mental and physical factors can account for almost any creepy occurrence—including some famous ones ripe for debunking—and help to make sense of our perpetual urge to sleep with the night light on.
Sometimes, hoping for a spectral sighting or, like Heathcliff, dreading one is enough for us to conjure a wraith. Thanks to campfire tales and multimillion-dollar horror flicks, spooky notions can infiltrate our subconscious even without any real-life supernatural encounters. Nearly half of Americans think ghosts are real, according to market research company YouGov bloodsucking vampires scored a measly 13 percent.
That preconception primes our minds to run wild whenever we hear a creaky floorboard or feel a sudden chill. We have such a tendency because the human mind is highly suggestible, French says. This mental quirk is so powerful that it can deceive us even in real time: In another study, conducted by Goldsmiths' French, participants were much more likely to report witnessing a key bending of its own accord if someone standing next to them mentioned they had seen the eerie incident happen too.
Our preconceptions can also cause us to find supernatural evidence in garbled noise or blurred images. French says this phenomenon, called pareidolia, can explain many supposed recordings of phantom voices. If a ghost hunter or psychic instructs you to listen for a certain phrase, then your brain which loves identifying patterns tries as hard as it can to create those exact words from various bits of random sound.
Unfamiliar and threatening environments kick our survival instincts up a notch. Ghost tours capitalize on this hereditary paranoia by forcing the mind to wrestle with ambiguity. The uncertainty itself drives up the fear factor. Even quirks of architecture can trigger this primitive terror: In , British geographer Jay Appleton found that, when it comes to our habitats, humans tend to think of places as safe when they offer two things: prospect a clear view of the outside world and refuge the opportunity to hide from danger.
Research suggests that the brain may summon spirits as a means of coping with trauma, especially the pain of losing a loved one. One survey in the British Medical Journal found that close to half the widows in Wales and England had seen their mates postmortem. Experts think that such specters help us deal with painful or confusing events. A analysis published in the journal Death Studies looked at hundreds of incidents of supposed interaction with the deceased.
Studies suggest kids who are bullied or exposed to dangerous situations are more likely to have paranormal fantasies, a trend psychologists also found in adults with a history of childhood trauma. In a survey in The Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 91 percent of participants said their encounter had at least one upside, such as a sense of connection to others.
And the idea of a haunting can often include anything from a sensed presence, or objects moving, to spirit activity. So with Halloween just round the corner, here are the top three scientific and psychological explanations for hauntings, spirits, spookiness and all things supernatural — although it should be noted that many important questions have yet to be resolved …. Attempts to explain hauntings often draw upon psychological factors — such as suggestion — so being told a place is haunted is more likely to lead to ghostly goings-on.
One classic study saw participants visiting five main areas of a theatre before completing a questionnaire to assess their feelings and perceptions. Prior to the tour, one group was told the location was haunted, while the other group was informed that the building was under renovation. Unsurprisingly, participants that were told the place was haunted experienced more intense experiences — similar to those of paranormal happenings.
Verbal suggestion has also been shown to increase paranormal perceptions — as shown in research on seance phenomena, paranormal key bending and psychic reading — especially when the suggestion is consistent with existing paranormal beliefs. But research in real-world settings has produced inconsistent results. And of course, paranormal believers are prone to endorsing alleged paranormal phenomena — while sceptics will deny the existence of the paranormal.
0コメント