Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all! We have been experiencing an issue on site where threads have been missing the latest postings. The platform host Vanilla are working on this issue. A workaround that has been used by some is to navigate back from 1 to 10+ pages to re-sync the thread and this will then show the latest posts. Thanks, Mike.
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest
I Just Saw a Fcuking Ghost
Comments
-
My level of belief in the supernatural was re-affirmed when I came down the stairs one night to the kitchen to get a drink. Through the window in the back door I saw the floating ghostly form of Jesus Christ or a spirit that looked like the traditional white blue eyed bearded man depiction of Jesus.
This apparition just confirmed what I already knew..................
......That the brain is an amazing organ but that it regularily gets things wrong and that even the most convincing visions are in all likelyhood....ahem...brainfarts.
If I was a believer in the supernatural and then saw this apparition, my likely reaction would have been fear and then I would have imediately ran off to tell someone. Mine would have become one of those countless anecdotes that you hear. ie. "I have a friend who said he saw a spirit and he is a straight up guy, he wouldn't lie about something like that, I have no reason not to believe his sincerity" etc etc. (I am a straight up guy and I wouldn't lie about something like this)
The difference is that I am not a believer and I know the illusions the brain is capable off. My first reaction was not fear and the wish to run straight off to tell someone. My reaction was WTF and immediate curiosity. ie. I know I am not really seeing what it looks like I am seeing.
I stopped dead in my tracks and studied this vision of a bearded robed man in the back yard out through the window in the back door. I knew this was likely an instance of the brain taking some visual clues in the murky light and jumping to the wrong conclusion and filling in the gaps incorrrectly when 'drawing' what it guessed I was seeing on my visual cortex. This type of thing has an evolutionary basis. In the dim light around the Plieostecene campfire and the eye/brain detects a shape moving in the bushes nearby, its better for the brain (and its transport mechanism - Your Body!) to be safe than sorry and draw a sabretooth tiger on the visual cortex and make you jump, than guess its just an interplay of light and shadow with a branch of the bush. Better to make you jump by mistake 9 times out of 10 than not make you jump that 1 time it really is a sabretooth tiger.
I knew this was one of those instances. I studied the apparition for a few moments and then it clicked what it was and the apparition collapsed. It was something like the reflection of the towel on the chair beside me in the window of the back door superimposed over something hanging on the gate out in the yard. ONce I knew what it was I was able to make the apparition re-appear and disappear at will. Think of it like that popular illusion of the candlestick and the to faces looking at each other. One can switch their brain from percieving the candlestick or two faces and switch between the perception of them at will.
I smiled and went back to bed. Like I said, what if I was a believer and didn't pause to study the vision and immediately ran off and told the story with complete sincerity to others. This would be just another one of those supernatural anecdotes.
Everyone experiences this kind of brainfart its just that when it happens in daylight and the thing your brain draws on your visual cortex is an everyday object, one doesn't think they saw the ghost of a big rat, one just laughs to ones self that they thought they saw a big rat for a second. For some reason a lot of people don't seem to connect the dots and realise that this is the exact same normal nuerological perceptual brainfart thing that happens when they think they have seen a ghost later in the day
The rat example was me walking out the back door and seeing a big rat run past me which made me jump. A split second later my brain copped on to its mistake. I was looking down as I walked out the door, just as my mother walked past to the utility room. She was wearing beige slacks that camoflaged her legs against the beige floor tiles, In that split second my brain only percieved her disembodied brown shoes zipping past along the ground. My brain made a split second guess and drew a rat on my visual cortex. I jumped, my perspective changed and I saw the rest of my mother in my peripheral visual. The illusion collapsed and the rat disappearred. The exact same type of thing as My Vision of Jesus.
The exact same thing as the ghostly figure on the dark lane ahead disappearing before my eyes. It was just my brain redrawing the bush branch and shadow/light interplay from its human shape into its real shape....a bush branch and a shadow. It wasn't a disappearing fecking spirit of a middle ages soldier from a historical battle in the 16th century haunting the area around the old battlefield etc etc
Excellent post! If people were only a little more educated in perceptual psychology it'd be a great thing. It's hard to believe that in this day and age there's still so many people who believe in ghost's n stuff.
0 -
-
-
-
-
My level of belief in the supernatural was re-affirmed when I came down the stairs one night to the kitchen to get a drink. Through the window in the back door I saw the floating ghostly form of Jesus Christ or a spirit that looked like the traditional white blue eyed bearded man depiction of Jesus.
This apparition just confirmed what I already knew..................
......That the brain is an amazing organ but that it regularily gets things wrong and that even the most convincing visions are in all likelyhood....ahem...brainfarts.
If I was a believer in the supernatural and then saw this apparition, my likely reaction would have been fear and then I would have imediately ran off to tell someone. Mine would have become one of those countless anecdotes that you hear. ie. "I have a friend who said he saw a spirit and he is a straight up guy, he wouldn't lie about something like that, I have no reason not to believe his sincerity" etc etc. (I am a straight up guy and I wouldn't lie about something like this)
The difference is that I am not a believer and I know the illusions the brain is capable off. My first reaction was not fear and the wish to run straight off to tell someone. My reaction was WTF and immediate curiosity. ie. I know I am not really seeing what it looks like I am seeing.
I stopped dead in my tracks and studied this vision of a bearded robed man in the back yard out through the window in the back door. I knew this was likely an instance of the brain taking some visual clues in the murky light and jumping to the wrong conclusion and filling in the gaps incorrrectly when 'drawing' what it guessed I was seeing on my visual cortex. This type of thing has an evolutionary basis. In the dim light around the Plieostecene campfire and the eye/brain detects a shape moving in the bushes nearby, its better for the brain (and its transport mechanism - Your Body!) to be safe than sorry and draw a sabretooth tiger on the visual cortex and make you jump, than guess its just an interplay of light and shadow with a branch of the bush. Better to make you jump by mistake 9 times out of 10 than not make you jump that 1 time it really is a sabretooth tiger.
I knew this was one of those instances. I studied the apparition for a few moments and then it clicked what it was and the apparition collapsed. It was something like the reflection of the towel on the chair beside me in the window of the back door superimposed over something hanging on the gate out in the yard. ONce I knew what it was I was able to make the apparition re-appear and disappear at will. Think of it like that popular illusion of the candlestick and the to faces looking at each other. One can switch their brain from percieving the candlestick or two faces and switch between the perception of them at will.
I smiled and went back to bed. Like I said, what if I was a believer and didn't pause to study the vision and immediately ran off and told the story with complete sincerity to others. This would be just another one of those supernatural anecdotes.
Everyone experiences this kind of brainfart its just that when it happens in daylight and the thing your brain draws on your visual cortex is an everyday object, one doesn't think they saw the ghost of a big rat, one just laughs to ones self that they thought they saw a big rat for a second. For some reason a lot of people don't seem to connect the dots and realise that this is the exact same normal nuerological perceptual brainfart thing that happens when they think they have seen a ghost later in the day
The rat example was me walking out the back door and seeing a big rat run past me which made me jump. A split second later my brain copped on to its mistake. I was looking down as I walked out the door, just as my mother walked past to the utility room. She was wearing beige slacks that camoflaged her legs against the beige floor tiles, In that split second my brain only percieved her disembodied brown shoes zipping past along the ground. My brain made a split second guess and drew a rat on my visual cortex. I jumped, my perspective changed and I saw the rest of my mother in my peripheral visual. The illusion collapsed and the rat disappearred. The exact same type of thing as My Vision of Jesus.
The exact same thing as the ghostly figure on the dark lane ahead disappearing before my eyes. It was just my brain redrawing the bush branch and shadow/light interplay from its human shape into its real shape....a bush branch and a shadow. It wasn't a disappearing fecking spirit of a middle ages soldier from a historical battle in the 16th century haunting the area around the old battlefield etc etc
Brilliant post right there.0 -
Excellent post! If people were only a little more educated in perceptual psychology it'd be a great thing. It's hard to believe that in this day and age there's still so many people who believe in ghost's n stuff.
Yeah, its not like I am university educated in a related field or any field
. All it took was an interest in the Discovery channel and you'd be amazed what you can pick up. But how can a university educated expert in such and such be that intelligent and yet believe in Ghosts or OBE's etc etc when non university educated me has the sense to see through it. Of course there are many reasons but one of them is that their focus that allowed them to excel in their field limits there exposure to other knowledge. They know a lot about a little. I know a little about a lot. If their limited range of highly focused knowledge doesn't have much to say on the matter of ghosts for example, there is not as much counter knowledge in their brain to balance out or explain all the ghost anecdotes they hear from people they trust.
However, if you know a little about a lot of science that does disprove ghosts then the balance shifts to the other side. ie. Maybe my friends mistaken about the ghost cause I know of '****loads' of information that counters it and I know about the studies that show the average persons ego makes them think their brain is infallible and other studies that show how and why their brains made them think they saw a ghost etc etc
Kids should be shown videos by the Neurologist VS Ramachandran.
I don't know how anyone can walk away believing in the supernatural or religion after watching a lot of his stuff and the neurological aspect is just one of the myriad dis-proofs of the supernatural.
And of course a lot of his stuff that isn't about the supernatural is extremely interesting anyway. Phantom limbs, Synethesia etc etc0 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
I see them all the time. When I was a young fella I even got to know one really well, he was a psychiatrist who...
ah **** it.
Calibos that is a great post. Out of curiosity...are you any good at drawing? I'm convinced that some people's brains join the dots so they "see things" and some don't, and that must account for some people's propensity for seeing ghosts while some people like me never see anything. I've always wondered why I never ever see anything supernatural when in fact I've always been quite open to the idea of the supernatural (still am) and have been in plenty of spooky situations.
I know people who have had lots of these supernatural visions and while I trust them too much to dismiss them as having the old chiched "vivid imagination", those people do tend to have what I'd call a more visual imagination compared to me - they can all draw or describe things from memory and remember faces much better than me. If I saw the disembodied shoes you described I probably wouldn't have made the jump to "rat"...I'd probably have been like "WTF I don't know anything that shape that runs!"
LOL. Im a lousy drawer. Let me ask you a similar question. Do you like modern or abstract art or do you say to yourself, if I could do it then its not art. Spookily when I was looking up the spelling ov VS Ramachandran I clicked on a youtube link to one of his TED talks. One of the things he was talking about was that the level of synesthesia neuropathy which is related to metaphor is 8 times higher in artists,poets, novelists and creative people than in the general population....and I reckon in the population of ardent supernatural believers which backs up the point you are making.
With regard to the rat example. It was both an example of the power of the brain and its shortcomings. In a microsecond without my concious brain even being aware of the process, the brain saw the disembodied brown shoes, decided that brown shoes don't move across the ground on their own, picked a brown object about the size of a shoe that would be likely to move quickly across the ground, ie. a rat fits the description, and then drew the picture of a running rat on my visual cortex. I literally 'Saw' a rat. It was only when new sensory input came in in the following microseconds, ie. now seeing the rest of my mothers body, that my brain realised its mistake, now drew my mother on my visual cortex, the rat became shoes and the illusion collapsed.
Amazing processing power and guesswork every split second.....but inevitably the amazing brain gets it wrong sometimes.0 -
Yeah, its not like I am university educated in a related field or any field . All it took was an interest in the Discovery channel and you'd be amazed what you can pick up. But how can a university educated expert in such and such be that intelligent and yet believe in Ghosts or OBE's etc etc when non university educated me has the sense to see through it. Of course there are many reasons but one of them is that their focus that allowed them to excel in their field limits there exposure to other knowledge. They know a lot about a little. I know a little about a lot. If their limited range of highly focused knowledge doesn't have much to say on the matter of ghosts for example, there is not as much counter knowledge in their brain to balance out or explain all the ghost anecdotes they hear from people they trust.
I like that line of thought. I think also that people can become programmed to believe what they do, if they've believed it from a young age. The same goes for religion, the majority of people just go along believing because they were told it at a young age when they were very susceptible and would believe what they're told.Kids should be shown videos by the Neurologist VS Ramachandran.
I don't know how anyone can walk away believing in the supernatural or religion after watching a lot of his stuff and the neurological aspect is just one of the myriad dis-proofs of the supernatural.
And of course a lot of his stuff that isn't about the supernatural is extremely interesting anyway. Phantom limbs, Synethesia etc etc
He sounds good, I'll look him up. I actually did a module of this kind of thing for a college course, just for half a semester. I considered switching course after it, because it was so interesting! 0 -
Deleted User wrote: »Funnily enough, that's not true. The Ouija Board is actually a Hasbro game.
what's not true?0 -
Deleted User wrote: »
it sacred me flashed for about 2 seconds and it dissapeared
im not crazy
it was all white also
You sure you didn't just see yourself in the mirror?0 -
Deleted User wrote: » it sacred me flashed for about 2 seconds and it dissapeared
im not crazy
it was all white also
what was the Ghost Fcuking? another ghost? a dog? a sheep? tell us!!!!0 -
Deleted User wrote: » it sacred me flashed for about 2 seconds and it dissapearedo
Sounds like a classic case of some pervert exposing himself, don't worry about it.0 -
Advertisement
-
-
-
The reality is the majority of what a human sees is a complete fabrication that the brain renders on the fly. The human eye only has one tiny spot in focus, if you stare at something you'll notice your vision will go blurry with only one small area of focus. You have to move your eyes all the time to build up the picture for your brain. There's also a large blind spot right in the middle of your vision and of course the image is upside-down.
So the brain has to fill in a blind spot, build a picture out of very little information then flip that image the right way up, it has to do it twice and combine those two images into a 3D image. That's an incredible amount of processing and you can forgive it the odd brainfart.
Your talking about Foveal vision. I didn't go into that aspect because I got a load of TLDR responses for something in another thread and the post in this thread was well on its way to reaching a length that would initiate that AH response
One can indeed forgive it alright. The problem is that plenty/most people don't realise that there is such a thing as a thing called a brainfart to forgive, and that their own or other peoples brains are not infallible. They'll say, "I/My friend don't have hallucinations, I/My friend didn't imagine it, I/My friend have no reason to lie about this " etc etc
They are correct in a way. They didn't hallucinate it. They didn't 'imagine' it. They really did see it. However, neurologically, its just like my Rat thing. I 'Really' did 'see' a rat. I didn't just see the rat in my minds eye so to speak. I literally 'saw' a rat run past me on the ground for a split second.
So I never think a person telling their ghost story is crazy or was hallucinating or that there is anything wrong with them. I know they are perfectly normal. The problem is they don't know that the type of thing they saw is perfectly normal. They think their brain is infallible, so if it 'Saw' a Ghost, they really really saw a Ghost because they have no other way to explain it...until hopefully someone explains the neurology of it all to them.
Another thing that ties into all this is related in several ways. Eye Witness testimony. It ties into peoples and their brains belief in their/its infallibility. Studies have shown how eye witness testimony and recall is not reliable. The brain can fill in the gaps in memory of the event with its own invented narrative, that to the person doing the recalling feels like a genuine memory. Thats the brain filling in perceptual gaps again. Thats the brain feeling infallible again. Then this effect only magnifies the Ghost event.
I was watching and cringing at the Celebrity Ghost story show I cam across on one of the obscure Sky channels. The actress who played Tony Sopranos sister was telling her Ghost story. All the way through the story you could identify the various effects we've spoken about in this thread
Basically it sounded to me like a car headlight down the street had cast a moving shadow of something outside onto the interior walls of the room she was in. Her brain drew a running child in nightgown running across the room on her visual cortex. She talked about a picture frame that had moved. Of course it didn't move infront of her very eyes. She just 'Knew' it wasn't in the same position it was in when she entered the room. Yeah she can see the picture frame in her vision but without focusing on it with her Foveal vision, what was written on her visual cortex was the brains rendering as you say of an approximation of the picture frame. The rendering is not detailed enough for the brain to record with certainty, its exact orientation taking into account the bodies moving point of view as she walked into the room or perspsective. Neither does the brain make a perfect recording of what it sees to be recalled later. Its a whole other interesting area about how the brain decides what to record and in what level of detail to short term memory and/or shunt to long term memory and how it does this on the fly without you even being aware of the process. Then the brain creating 'real' memory enters the frame to mess with a persons head. Her brain decides that its not sure about the orientation of the picture frame, It thinks the frame may or may not have moved since she entered the room. A moved picture frame ties in with the ghost apparition. The brain decides to create a convincing memory of the frame orentated one way when she entered the room and orentated differently after she saw the ghost.
She just doesn't realise that this is exactly the same thing as saying, "I swear on my sons life that I left my keys over there! Well did you check in the drawer?? I already checked there and they weren't there!! Well check again...OMG, I was sure they weren't in this drawer when I checked.!! "
TBH, I wonder do people misinterpret the Occams Razor axiom. The simplest explanation is usually true. When you know some of the neurology even as merely a discovery channel watching layman, the kind of thing we've been talking about is 'the simplest explanation'. For many I fear, when they read all that they say to themselves, "Those 5000 words aren't a bloody simple explanation!! :eek: Heres a simple explanation in 5 words.......
I SAW A REAL GHOST:D 0 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
-
Canis Lupus wrote: »No such thing as ghosts. I do lurk once in a while in the para forum just to have a giggle at how stupid people can be.
I've actually done that before too! Then I felt guilty about it. In most cases a person isn't stupid/gullible by choice, just born or raised that way. There's probably people who look at my posts and giggle at how stupid I am. 0 -
-
Advertisement