Before Trick or treating became popular, making this occasion a truly sweet delight, the Halloween custom was originally celebrated to pay respect to those who passed away. Hence, it is not all for fun and could be a scary thing, like seeing a ghost for instance. The existence of ghosts or monsters had provoked tons of debates around the world and had even influenced most of the books and movies all throughout history.
Do ghosts really exist? Today, experts will explain their claim regarding the matter and science will answer that question as well.
A study was made and published on a 2014 paper in the Current Biology journal by Olaf Blanke of the University Hospital of Geneva about Neurological and Robot-Controlled Induction of an Apparition. A lot of stories and myths talked about people seeing and feeling the presence of invisible creatures or ghosts. Scientists have called it a "feeling of presence." 18% of Americans claimed on a poll that they have seen or felt ghosts.
From the study, researchers discovered that people who were experiencing a specific kind of brain injury have greater chances of experiencing this feeling. Experts claimed that particular areas of some patients' frontoparietal cortex were damaged. Frontoparietal cortex is an area of the brain which is also a source of attentional control.
The scientists experimentally produced the feeling of presence. 50 healthy volunteers participated in the experiment. They were asked to stand between two robots and poke the robot in front of them with a stick. That "master" robot creates signals that manipulate the second "slave" robot behind the participant. The slave robot copies the person's actions by a stick touching the person's back. The volunteers felt that someone is touching them at their back as they stroke the robot in front of them. The outcome brings a distinct feeling that they are touching their back even if it's physically impossible. The experts have controlled the participant's sense of where his self begins and ends.
In the second experiment, the researchers allowed the slave robot to touch the person's back after 1.5 seconds of poking the master robot, thus creating a postponement between what a person did and felt. The participants by this time experienced a "feeling of presence": The participants exclaimed that invisible ghostly person is present and touching their back.
The outcome of the experiment proposed that the strange feeling of another presence is associated to the feeling of one's own presence. Thus, when a person encounters ghosts and spirits, he is only experiencing a version of himself. The brain creates a vision of the "I" coming out of his body. Hence, if a person is experiencing a brain injury, he will preferably associate the experience on an invisible, ghostly presence.
