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Paranormal research blog |
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Whenever new information becomes available on a subject ASSAP covers, it is added to the relevant pages of the website straight away. So, just because you've read a page, don't assume it will still be exactly the same when you next look. That way the ASSAP website remains an up to date research resource. The photo (above right) is the ASSAP blogger himself, out looking for anomalies wherever they are to be found, so that you can read about them here. Important note: If anything in this blog does not make sense, try following the links in text! If it still doesn't make sense, that's probably my fault ... Previous blog pages ... (including ghosts, UFOs, poltergeists, flying rods, miracles, orbs, hypnotic regression, big cats, vampires, near sleep experiences, premonitions, shadow ghosts, paranormal photos, auras and dozens of other subjects) 9 Feb 2010: Near sleep experiences on trains I mentioned recently(4 Feb) how riding on a train tends to send me to sleep. Long ago I used to commute by train and would regularly fall asleep then as well. Oddly, I would always wake just before arriving at my station. Other commuters have reported this too. So how do we know, when fast asleep, that it's time to get off? Could it be paranormal? The fact that commuters take the same journey frequently probably has something to do with it. We all have built-in clocks in our brains so that we usually know roughly what time it is, even with no watch or clock visible. So could this be responsible? Maybe, but it wouldn't explain how commuters still wake up even when their train is running late. Another possibility is simply that commuters hear their station announced, when asleep, and it wakes them, like hearing someone calling your name. This is possible but when I commuted they did not have such public announcements and I still had no trouble missing my stop! Another possible explanation is that we unconsciously learn to recognise the characteristic sounds the train makes, like going over points or noisy bits of track, along our regular route. Then when we hear the characteristic sounds that occur just before our station, we wake up. I don't know if this last explanation is true though no doubt it could be tested. If it WAS true then it would mean that we pick up a lot more information about the environment we move though day to day than we imagine. Most of it feeds into the unconscious parts of our brain where it is only accessed when useful or relevant, as with waking the sleeping commuter. It could be a trigger for reports of paranormal experiences. If we travel along a familiar route, going to work or the shops, we may notice when something appears 'different' or 'wrong', even though we cannot say what exactly has changed. This feeling of something being 'wrong' might well put our brains into a state where we have a misperception. We misperceive all the time but only notice it occasionally, so there must be some specific trigger for these rare events, and this feeling of something being 'different' may be one (see also 1 Feb). 8 Feb 2010: Believing is hearing The other day, while out and about, I heard a faint voice in the distance. It was so faint I couldn't work out where it was coming from. Looking around there were a few people nearby but none were talking. I was sure the sound was a human voice but I couldn't make out any individual words. I wondered for a while if it might be a case of formant noise, where certain ambient sounds shares some characteristics with a voice. I have occasionally heard 'voices' in electric fans and I wondered if this could be similar. Eventually I spotted the cause of the sound. It really was a human voice, coming out of the speaker of a mobile phone! The person with the phone wasn't talking, which is why I didn't realise earlier what it was. There is a growing tendency for people to use their mobiles in speaker mode in public so that anyone nearby can hear both sides of the conversation, whether they want to or not! Mobiles are also used to play music in this same way. The sound is generally not that loud so it can be difficult to make out what exactly it is. So now we have yet another source of anomalous voices to consider in haunting cases! I wonder if this has already produced reports of 'ghostly voices' on any vigils? It seems every new piece of technology brings with it a possibility of producing new kinds of xenonormal report. 5 Feb 2010: Believing is seeing Over several decades of actively researching paranormal phenomena I have, on occasion, been able to witness people seeing things they later claimed were paranormal. In every case I knew what was being seen was actually xenonormal because I recognised it and understood its cause (and investigated it at the time when practical). When the other witnesses reported the event, they tended to emphasise the features that made it paranormal to them, such as the apparent impossibility of the event. They often continued to believe it was paranormal even after it had been satisfactorily explained! In recent years I, too, have started to see many apparently paranormal phenomena, despite having drawn an almost complete blank for the preceding decades. The difference with those witnesses I mentioned above is that I am fully aware that what I am seeing is xenonormal at the time of the sighting. Indeed, I am often able to investigate the phenomenon at the time and satisfy myself that it is indeed xenonormal. All of this may explains why I, and many other serious paranormal researchers, have never had a Hollywood moment, where you see something obviously and unambiguously paranormal, like in the movies. Though other witnesses sometimes have such moments, they may, quite unconsciously, be exaggerating the paranormal nature of their experience in their memory. I believe that, if I was standing next to them when they had their dramatic ghost sighting, I would almost certainly see something obviously xenonormal, or at least not as ambiguously paranormal as reported. As a result I am no longer puzzled by how some people get such seemingly amazing results, nor even jealous anymore! It is important to realise that the process of misperception produces an image which is presented to the witness, by their own brain, as completely real! What each people actually sees, however, is different. I may see a poorly visible tree as a vague dark ghostly figure while someone else may see many more 'details, even enough to 'identify' the 'apparition'. There will be similarities between the two descriptions because they are caused by the same object being misperceived. So height, width, distance and coloration may be the same but the other details will depend on the witness' visual memory. Someone who is expecting a particular ghost at a particular site, because they've read about it, may see detail that apparently confirms the identity! We misperceive almost all the time. Seeing ghosts, by contrast, is a rare phenomenon. It might depend on the expectation, and particular visual memories, of the witness as to whether they misperceive objects as ghosts. Based on my experience, you probably need to accept the possibility of misperception in order to notice it. By the same token, you probably need to accept the possibility of ghosts to misperceive objects as apparitions. So believing may lead directly to seeing. 4 Feb 2010: Another day another OOBE! After looking for non-working escalators to walk down for weeks, today I unexpectedly found two together! The first was roped off but the second was open, so I walked down it. I felt a bit weird, looking at the silver metal steps with the dark gaps between. However, I didn't get an OOBE! Perhaps I should have gone back to the top and tried again a few more times. It might be a cumulative effect. I probably would have been stopped for behaving suspiciously eventually! If you are not a regular and have no idea what I'm talking about, see here to get up to speed! Later on, I was riding a train and feeling sleepy. Trains often send me to sleep - it's probably the gentle slight swaying motion. Anyway, at one point the train braked unusually enthusiastically, causing me to sway much more than usual. This had two effects - I woke up and I had an OOBE! To be precise, I had a feeling that I was leaving my body and then suddenly got yanked back into it, as if attached by an elastic rope! It was a slightly unpleasant feeling, perhaps because I had no control over it! In this particular case, I was clearly in a near-sleep state, drifting in and out of consciousness. In my theory of how OOBEs are induced, at least two of the senses that inform our brain where our body is in space must be giving inaccurate, or no, information and we need to be in a particular mental state - like imagining, dreaming (including day dreaming) or meditating. In this case, my eyes were closed so one sensory channel was clearly unavailable. A second sensory channel, touch, was also compromised because I was sitting down, so my body thought it was stationary, but the train produced a sudden unexpected bodily movement. And I was certainly in an unusual mental state - between sleep and wakefulness. So, this apparent OOBE fits the theory. All of this makes me wonder if I am naturally susceptible to OOBEs but simply have not noticed it before. However, I only started noticing misperceptions after I became acutely aware of them, even though they are happening to most people much of the time. So, while I'm now sure I can have OOBEs, I don't know if I'm particularly susceptible or have simply started to notice them more. Perhaps that is the way with most people who have OOBEs. Maybe anyone can have them but only a few people realise what they are. 3 Feb 2010: Instrumentation into the future Given that most paranormal reports are explained by things like misperception and near-sleep experiences, which are both subjective, is there much point in deploying instruments on investigations? Yes there is! Firstly, we need to eliminate possible physical causes of reported paranormal phenomena. So, for instance, we can put a video camera on an empty room to prove there was no one in there during an investigation. Secondly, there ARE some phenomena that we know can be caused by physical phenomena, like magnetic hallucinations. Thirdly, there may be other phenomena that we don't yet know about that could the cause of some paranormal reports. If we don't look, we'll never know! On the downside, many instruments produce artifacts that can be misinterpreted as paranormal, like orbs in digital cameras. However, what about the subjective phenomena, like misperception? Can they be instrumented? Because a phenomenon is subjective, it doesn't mean it leaves no physical trace. If someone saw a ghost while in a fMRI machine, we might be able to see if there was any particular area of the brain involved. My guess is that misperceiving a ghost would stimulate the same areas of the brain that are involved in normal visual perception. That's because misperception is part of normal perception! We can't put investigators in fMRI machines in haunted houses as they are big and expensive! And even if we did, they might just show up normal perception! We'll need to wait for some new technology to make a portable deep brain scan possible (EEGs only measure activity at the surface of the brain and are not that useful for such applications). Eventually, it should be possible to display what someone is actually seeing in real time (by monitoring their brain) on a computer screen and compare it with the real scene, viewed by a video camera. Then we will finally be able to see misperception in action in someone else's head. It will no longer be a purely subjective experience. Until then, instruments can be useful but we must be aware that they cannot currently measure some of the most important causes of paranormal reports. 2 Feb 2010: Birds behaving oddly
I watched the other day as someone gazed for a long time at a Little Egret (photo right), clearly wondering what it was. These small white herons have colonised southern England in the last decade or so and are now quite common in some places. I was tempted to say 'ghostly white herons' except ghosts are only white in the movies! These birds still look exotic in the English countryside. They are not too difficult to see along the south coast and in winter they turn up inland, like the one pictured. Even so, few people notice them but, when they do, they are often surprised at the birds' striking appearance. Nature is always surprising us and sometimes it can produce xenonormal reports! 1 Feb 2010: When do people see ghosts?
We know that the conditions for misperception are around us for much of the time. An object may be too distant to see well or low light levels may make everything difficult to recognise. And at any time objects in our peripheral vision are poorly observed. It therefore follows that misperception is probably going on most of the time for everyone. So why don't we notice it? It is because our brains are the things producing the misperceptions and they also 'validate' them. In other words misperceptions are labeled as 'true' perceptions even before we are consciously aware of them. So though we misperceive all the time, we are very rarely aware of it. In my experience, you only start to recognise misperceptions when you become aware that they can happen. Even then, it is a rare event! So the real question is, why do people sometimes take misperceptions as anomalous phenomena? Why, for instance, does someone see a tree in their peripheral vision (example in photo - see here for account of the sighting) as a ghostly figure? There are two things going on here. Firstly, the witness actually notices a misperception, a rare event in itself. Secondly, they interpret it as something in the real world (not just created by their own brain). I suspect they notice the misperception BECAUSE they think it is strange or out of place. Although the content of misperceptions is based on what the brain expects to see in any given situation, sometimes the witness may find the resulting image disturbing and so notice it. If the witness is anxiously walking along a lane at night alone, they will be disturbed at the sight of a dark figure nearby. Our brains sometimes 'see' exactly what they are most anxious not to! This fits in with the observation that people report more paranormal activity in places that look spooky than elsewhere. This may be where the influence of culture comes in. If a witness views a scene reminiscent of a horror movie they once saw, it may unconsciously trigger a misperception based on that fictional scene. As well producing a misperception it may also inform its specific content. Their brain might literally 'see' a ghost in a ruined castle because they have memory of a similar scene in a horror movie. This would be a latent memory, only recalled by a specific trigger (the scene) and not necessarily be consciously accessible. Clearly, the question of when we notice misperceptions is central to the understanding of ghost experiences. I will return to it again, after more research. PS: The Sky Lanterns that cause ufologists such grief (see here) are also not popular with farmers, according to the BBC.
This month's (January) website figures are an average of 11465 hits per day. This is noticeably up on last month's 10752, which was a holiday month! It is substantially up (by 56%) on the same month in the previous year, when the number of hits was only 7355 average per day!
© Maurice Townsend 2010 |
Welcome to the ASSAP paranormal blog! Though this blog is aimed at anyone interested in the paranormal, it will be of particular interest to the paranormal research community. Updated frequently, but not regularly (don't expect something new every day!), it covers any paranormal topic, as well as highlighting recent changes to the ASSAP website. You may not notice it but this site changes on an almost daily basis. 
The ever dependable New Scientist (27 Jan) reports that crows can not only recognise individual humans (which is more than we can do for crows!) but can remember if someone has treated them badly! So if you do something to annoy a local crow, don't be surprised if they call out at you for years after! You may start to wonder what on earth is going on! It is another example of how someone, who is not aware of natural history, might be puzzled by animal behaviour and treat it as anomalous.
OK, to be more precise what I am asking is, when do people 