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hello everyone welcome back to seeker
plus the video podcast series where we
take a few episodes and deep dive into
one topic i'm your host julian hugett
and
boy it's been a long time since we
posted one of these so thank you so much
for joining us i'm excited to be here i
hope you are too now
because the show is coming back from the
dead so to speak and we are approaching
halloween we thought it would be fun to
start with everyone's favorite undead
bed sheet apparition
ghosts
so over the next three episodes we'll be
talking about what science says about
ghosts we're going to myth bust about
hauntings get into what we actually know
about what happens when we die
what we don't know about what happens
when we die and then we'll get into the
pros and cons of believing in ghosts
this is just the first episode so make
sure you're subscribed to the channel
you get that nice fun little alert when
the next two episodes come out and if
you don't i'll haunt you
you know metaphorically speaking
okay so let's get into it
ghosts
have you seen one
no i mean
like really have you it's okay to say
yeah i think i've seen a ghost you have
a lot of company plenty of people have
ghost stories a recent yougov poll found
that 20 of americans believe in ghosts
saying they definitely exist and another
25 percent said that they probably exist
so
it's about half the country that says
the ghosts probably exist and of course
it's not just limited to the usa the
idea of ghosts can be found in one form
or another in
just about every culture in every part
of the world in all of recorded history
so why
why do we see or hear ghosts or at least
why do we think we see or hear ghosts
well the first thing we should go over
is a concept that many of you are
probably familiar with peridolia this is
the phenomenon where your brain takes
something random and gives it meaning
you can think of craters on the moon
that we see a face in or
random shapes of a cloud that we
interpret to look like a bunny or when
we see some shadows cast on a wall
it's a ghost
this is one of the go-to scientific
explanations for why people see ghosts
numerous studies state that the more
people see faces in objects the more
they probably believe in paranormal
things and according to science when you
combine our tendency to see patterns
where there are none with an existing
belief in the supernatural the
likelihood that you'll see something
goes up there's actually been studies on
this on how belief in ghosts or the
paranormal will make you more likely to
see a ghost one study showed that if
there's a credible source that says
ghosts surreal the likelihood that
people will believe in them goes up the
study pointed out that
children and scientists were counted as
credible sources but written text was
not so do with that what you will
other studies have shown that if you
verbally tell someone something like hey
this place is haunted before you go in
you're more likely to think you see a
ghost once you're inside one study
mentioned the white christmas effect
where they asked participants to close
their eyes and think of that song for 30
seconds you can go ahead and do it right
now you know the one right i'm
dreaming
okay i'm gonna stop singing it but just
listen
do you think you actually started
hearing it
because most participants in this study
said that they could hear the song
clearly scientists have connected this
to hauntings saying if you're in a dark
old building that someone told you is
haunted and you close your eyes and
listen for voices or chains rattling or
spooky sounds you might just be tricked
into hearing it the paper i read also
pointed out that studies into why people
see ghosts are mostly inconclusive
because if you believe it's more likely
you're going to see it no matter what
and if you're skeptical you're more
likely not to see it so because of that
the data is kind of skewed and difficult
to parse
but psychologically if you believe there
is a ghost your brain is more likely to
create something out of nothing also
it's good to know that scientists have
related ghost experiences with things
like sleep deprivation
tiredness drug use brain disorders and
epilepsy i'm going to skip all of those
because i didn't actually find a lot of
studies on those they are usually used
in throwaway lines and opening
paragraphs of articles or studies about
why we see ghosts but i do want to read
one opening paragraph of a paper called
sensory dynamics of visual
hallucinations in the normal population
quote hallucinations can occur in both
healthy and unwell people drugs sleep
deprivation loss of vision and migraines
can all trigger visual hallucinations in
people with no psychiatric illness we
have known for more than 200 years that
flickering light can induce
hallucinations in almost anyone unquote
we knew that for 200 years who knew that
i didn't know that
okay sorry i got
carried away because i'm just a little
surprised they just dropped that in
there like everybody knew
but looking into this what they really
are saying is they can make people see
gray blobs with flashing light which
you know big whoop call me when you can
make people see a floating pirate ship
or something anyway let's get into some
explanations for ghost sightings that
kind of fascinate me when i learned
about them my personal favorite theory
is carbon monoxide poisoning there's a
famous case of a family that moved into
a big old house and they started
experiencing classic haunting things you
know strange sensations hearing
footsteps seeing figures
all of these symptoms were traced back
to a faulty furnace that was leaking
carbon monoxide there's a more recent
case where a woman was in a panic after
seeing a ghost while taking a shower
which i think i'd panic if i saw anybody
while taking a shower when they
investigated it a new gas water heater
was found to be installed improperly and
it was filling her house with carbon
monoxide
the
interesting thing i think about the
carbon monoxide explanation is carbon
monoxide poisoning lines up with a lot
of things that are often attributed to
hauntings things like pressure in your
chest auditory hallucinations and my
personal favorite a feeling of
unexplained dread
so add to that fact that carbon monoxide
is made when heating appliances like
stoves and furnaces aren't well
maintained which is more likely to
happen in aging dilapidated buildings
and it's easy to see how many creaky old
houses get a reputation for being
haunted
though again carbon monoxide leaks they
can happen anywhere one woman in a
suburb of la called sherman oaks was
sure she was haunted until she learned
about carbon monoxide poisoning had the
gas company come out and test for it and
yeah they found it was there they even
told her that if she hadn't called she
probably would have died soon and i just
want to say i've been to sherman oaks i
live near sherman oaks there's no ghosts
in sherman oaks so i'm glad she called
the gas company another fun explanation
for hauntings that is definitely not
ghosts is actually sound waves one study
cited in a paper i was reading called
the physics of false poltergeists which
is just a fantastic paper name anyway
the author's basic point was some
natural acoustic phenomena can do things
like rattle windows and doors and create
some noise illusions there's also
evidence that infrasound sound below the
range that you can hear which is at
about 19 hertz can cause you to have
these eerie feelings and a sense of doom
it can also cause vibrations in your
eyeball that make you perceive seeing
things out of the corner of your eye
this happened to one guy in a lab and he
wrote a paper about it called ghost in
the machine which again another great
paper title
basically he found a fan that was
running and was emitting this low
frequency sound and when he turned it
off
his paranormal experiences stopped
now not everyone agrees with the ghost
and the machine conclusion that there is
a
fear frequency so to speak that exists
however there have been a lot of tests
and studies into infrasound and sound
waves and it feels like there's a
definite connection between infrasound
and this sense of uneasiness so i
actually went into this episode thinking
that we were gonna completely blow the
lid off all of these hauntings but
it's funny how often science looks into
finding actual reasons for paranormal
stuff and still a lot of times walks
away going eh
who knows
again
the challenge is getting unbiased data
and also it's
really tough to prove that something
doesn't exist
finally let's talk about sleep paralysis
which many experts point to as why
people report ghosts and as a bonus
alien abductions
so basically when you're dreaming in rem
sleep your body tries to be in a
paralysis mode so if you're dreaming
about running
jumping
baking a cake with
celine dion whatever it may be your body
doesn't actually act those things out
now sometimes
things get screwed up and you start to
wake up but your body is still in this
state of paralysis now because things
are screwed up you also might have a
kind of waking dream these
hallucinations they can be visual but
they can also be sound or smell or a
feeling
an interview with a doctor at the
cleveland clinic said that the contents
of these hallucinations kind of come
down to your culture again if you grew
up thinking that there are paranormal
things and you wake up paralyzed and
hallucinating your mind is probably
going to go to something paranormal like
ghosts or demons sleep paralysis and
sleep hallucinations are two different
things but they can occur together
there's a great boston globe article
breaking down how this is all caused by
brain communication getting its wires
crossed and if you're interested
you should read it it's fascinating
stuff we'll put it in the show notes
okay so after all that
where do i land do i believe in ghosts
or has science convinced me they don't
exist
well i think that there are so many
things out there that can mess with us
starting first and foremost with our
brain our brain is not the reliable
objective observer that we would all
like to believe it is which i think can
account for a lot of hauntings there's
also been some great research done on
ghosts and hauntings most try to find
explanations for what people have
experienced but the trouble is
every situation is different different
places different people it's hard to
replicate something consistently like
this and really study it you can't
make a haunted house in a lab and test
it over and over again
at least you know not not ethically you
can't make a haunted house ethically
don't do a murder in a lab for the sake
of science plus
you know what part of it do you study
do you study the
feeling of there being a ghost present
or the actual sightings or the sounds
people hear or doors closing or
furnitures moving there's
so
much
that happens that people attribute to
ghosts an article on live science put it
perfectly if they exist
scientists will be able to prove it
so far they haven't and i've provided a
lot of studies that offer really
compelling alternative explanations so
maybe to understand if ghosts really
exist we have to study what happens when
we die
because after all ghosts are often
thought to be the wayward spirits of the
dead
so then
what do we know about what happens when
we die
we'll get to all that on the next
episode of seeker plus hey thanks for
watching thank you for tuning in for our
return episode be sure that you're
subscribed so you get notifications when
the future episodes in this series on
ghosts come out and when future series
come out as well if you've got any ideas
for where the show should go what topics
we should cover be sure to leave those
in the comments give me about anything
you want can be about
bears or
hairs
squares county fairs doesn't have to
rhyme with bears really anything just
leave it in the comments thanks again
for watching see you next time
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