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Ok, first off, this is NOT about drug use at all, so keep that for another thread.

I have read a few threads recently which have reminded me about a theory I was working on some time ago with regard to Ghosts and other Perception Anomalies.

It goes like this. The outside world is perceived via our relevant perceptions, which pass through a range of filters in our brains and are then “Perceived” as external stimuli, sound, sight, smell, touch, hearing…..

But given that these are by the above definition not the actually sensations, but our perceived perception of a sensation, anything which can effect our brains can generate a “false signal” if you will which is then incorrectly perceived as an input to one of our existing senses.

In this way many “paranormal” occurrences can be explained, if not explained away!

If you catch a sight out of the corner of your eye of something not there, or smell something no one else can smell, of hear your name called, or feel cold, or taste a foul taste in the air, that is your mind interpreting signals it can not explain as “false readings” to your perceptions, which easily explains why no one else can see them, or capture them.

So what about Digital Camera Images? Simple, it’s an electrical device which works in a similar way, translating input from a photosensitive reader and generating an image accordingly…. It’s performing exactly the same function as you eyes and brain!

Now the good bit….

Some people have a “sixth sense” call it witch sight, mentalist, what ever…. I believe this is simply a matter of having re-trained the brain to register these external extraneous stimuli for what they are rather then confusing them with the existing senses, and give more accurate readings of the outside world. Others may even develop further 7th or 8th senses if you will be filtering between these various stimuli even further.

I personally believe this route of thought is the first step to a scientific understanding of such phenomena, but what do you think?

Discuss! :-)

And what about a sighting made by numerous people? Is there some sort of wireless signal that makes all of them experience and perceive the same thing?

I think your theory is quite valid. Scientists have been able to produce "sights", "sounds", "smells" etc in surgury patients vie direct electrical stimulation of the brain. If the brain receives a signal from an external energy source it does not recognize, it would assign it to one of the "standard" senses for processing. Therefore, stimuli from a non recognized source may be assigned to any of the 5 senses by the brain in it's attempt to process the stimuli. It is possible for those who have developed (or were born with) a facility for recognizing the stimuli as a "sixth sense" to properly interpret the signals for what they are.

I say, if it doesn't tell or make you burn a school down, let it be strange and paranormal. If there is a stimuli then there is something. To imply that ghostly images appear just because a house settles puts a snag on some things... driving? Should we have "perception tests" at the DMV, to see if our minds are of the type that will actually be seeing what dangers might be on the road, or are we blocking out on coming cars because a stone hits the windshield?

Actually in the UK part of the driving test does include a video test on "Danger Perception" but that's something else all together.

I think the use of the word "Paranormal" is in itself a mistake "Para" means Like or near to, I think many things termed "paranormal" are in fact perfectly normal, could even be considered everyday, but have been labelled as "other"

A finely trained Wine Connoisseur can detect hints of tastes and smells in wine which are way beyond my meagre pallet, is that considered “Paranormal” or just good training?

Yes this has been studied and is actually taught in some churches. Sounds a bit hokey but it's true, because many have found that people desire these experiences, and when they have them they will donate more.

Without the hightened experience less donations. Now I am not saying this is a conscious thought in churches or religions, but to a small portion it is. Think of mass cult leaders, this is what they bring to their followers.

As for it being a link to science, perhaps. However my personal belief is that science will discover more as our ability to define energy within our own bodies increases. We still are learning about how the human body works in many ways and imaging is now able to show us more about what is occuring inside our bodies than even 2 or 3 years ago.

Also within a group thought implants could explain it too, if someone says they see something it implants something into another persons mind if, we are talking about ghost, the added fear whatever you see could be perceived as a spirit, for example light coming through a window wind blowing a curtain, your won shadow could take on a whole new meanings, small sounds become not so small because you're looking for something in particular.

What is fascinating about this is where science is in experimentation. I know that there are some computer chips being designed to help assist people with disabilities to regain some control though "hard wiring" the brain. While still years from being anything more than an experiment, it would seem that this type of research will be where we might find more of the answers.

Off shooting my own thread but... on the microchips thing.

They ran an experiment some time ago at MIT in Natural Selection techiniques to "evolve" a microchip.

In escence they built a chip which could electrically redesign the various parts of itslef by redirecting power. They set it the simple challenge of creating a clock which would switch on for ten seconds then switch off.... simple.

The first few iterations were terrible, as you would expect, but after a while it worked.... now the odd bit.

They had expected it to create a circuit with about 40 components, but it ended up with arround 25-30..... and in a really strange arrangement they could not understand, but if they removed a single component, even bits where not apparantly connected to other bits (of which there were a few!), it stopped working

Even in the things we build, sometimes, there is a whole load of stuff we do not understand.... so imagin what we do not understand in the things we have no control over!

if your theory is correct, then a brain wired to make associations in this way - a more surreal and creative state - would be more likely to have an artistic bent. or more musical perhaps. a simple survey could put this to the test.

Indeed, I have caught things out of the corner of my eye(wow, could be a song) and heard my name called. Of course, there once was a time, in a land far,far away where the Mouse plays, that I walked through the pastures where cows roamed in search of the magic mushroom. But.... I do not suggest anyone do that

So in essence what you are saying is that what we believe paranormal is really a mind glitch so to speak. And a psychic sense may actually be reality.

Interesting, I wonder though isn't that a renounciation of paranormal occurances? I mean technically if everything strange or unknown is our minds perceptions, then wouldn't Vampires, Werewolves, everything that is is in the interest of this site just be a fallacy passed down from the delusions of our predecessors?

If people long ago saw something suspicious in their perception of the world, maybe that is how legends, how religion came to be. From some mistake made by our ancestors, and nothing real at all.

Indeed a tragic theory. Though, I wonder am I stretching it a little far?

psychologists have proven that we learn to see things. when we see something totally new to us, the brain tries to compare it to something in the memory which is similar. if something is totally unlike anything we are familiar with, it is hard to concentrate on it or see it properly. if you only glimpse something out of the corner of your eye, the limits of peripheral vision give the brain less to work on, and it is likely to make a wrong association. did you know the eyes cannot see anything whilst they are moving? the brain imagines images for you, based on the last thing it saw.

I like those explainations, Karnstein. It sort of flirts around with my thoughts that there is that unusual stimuli there, it is all a matter of what our brain likes to do with it. Just the fact--energy or ghost--that we have these rogue anomolies about is an amazing thing.

We all perceive things differently. I mean, some people are colorblind so what maybe red to me, is really a different color to them. Some people have minds that are more logical than others, so when something of the paranormal nature happen, they are more likely to create an explanation that is *more logical* than take it for what it really was

Anyway..I think you have a really valid point there.

If your 'system' can't handle and process such impressions or 'false' readings,
would it not be an interesting idea, to change your ways of processing them?
Starting by the perception itself, further to the filters and eventually to the processing unit...
if altered too, could this lead to a more satisfying result?

To be frank: being crazy helps.
Seeing the world with childs eyes, rid of the moral and octruated boundaries of the mind helped me to accept, embrace and enjoy this instead of bothering wether my system may have glitch or the general belives are just to incomplete.

Am I crazy now or am I gifted?

Ok someone just made a good point, now as adults I can see your ideas and concepts as being valid and pretty reasonable. However, what about children? Their minds are undeveloped and growing they don't see the world how we see it. However they are more in tune to the world around them and see 'ghosts' spirits, etc. So in part as much as our minds can be programmed to see, hear, smell, etc. A childs isn't so how would that figure into your concept? Not bashing just wondering.

drugs are not they only way to alter perceptions try meditation :) it works well once you get the hang of it I found this thread to be a good reminder of how our perception is what rules what we see

I too believe that more than most possess a sixth sense, but do not act on it. Although some are not able or open to pursuing avenue, many of us here are.

I firmly believe that children see things differently.
No one has told them yet that there is "no such thing as ghosts"
They're much more innocent and don't know yet that what they maybe viewing may not 'exist' to others

That true, their brain hasn't labelled what ghosts are, they are learning and see everything brand new, as we grow up watch movies about ghosts etc; we lose that brand new sense and it gets replaced with what we are told ghosts look like. Something we may brush off as a shadow or a reflection of light, is something completely different to a child.

exactly and what we once knew is now replaced with almost- a sort of fear for the unknown

Or that we are looking for something different, the cookie cutter type ghost, see through etc;
We don't focus, we just look and wait for something to appear. With children, because everything is new and their senses are keen they focus in on things that peak their attention and try to compute, to label and know.

Very true
All the more reason why those years should be valued..

And why we can learn from children as well as teach them...who know what lives under the bed in the dark :)

:-) very true
instead of telling them there is no such thing as monsters or spirits- we need to teach them to accept and embrace the different

Lol but that could scare them even more, and they'd be sleeping with you in your bed until they are 35 @_@
I think instead we shouldn't brush off what they say, keep asking questions and make them think keep their perception of things open. Don't label everything for them, and remember what you see isn't necessarily what they see.

is that sort of like speculating that colors are different for some people? blue isnt blue to some people? or am i getting your perception theory wrong?

i like your theory it is well thought out .but if it is true mabye im getting a false readings of my perception of the posting.im not tring to be a dick but if your having "false readings"to explain the unexplainable then wouldnt you also have those same false readings with other things as well. not just with unexplained things.

children see with their minds more than their eyes. look at how a child draws his / her home. they draw it logically, resting on the ground. the sky is a thin blue strip at the top, the ground is a green strip on the bottom. big things are big, small things are small, no matter how near or how far away. it's as if someone has told them verbally what to draw, and they have never seen it. even if they live in a terraced house or a semi-detached, they will draw their home as one house, unconnected to others.i think children like cartoons because thats how they see the world. well, i did anyway.

Karnstein, interesting, something I had not really considered. However you are “taught” to draw, it is not something done instinctively, so is it that “teacher draws a house like this”? They have taught Elephants and Gorillas to draw, and they draw very interesting, but disturbingly “human” things….

When you look at Medieval Art they tended to attempt to draw everything, perspective is off, you see the top and side of tables oddly, things are out of whack because they attempted to put in the picture not what they could see but what they wanted to be in the picture, its only relatively recently that realistic art became the norm.

Chemicalbloodlines – No, your wrong, I’m saying these things exists, but that our perceptions fit them into what we accept is normal, without genuinely “seeing” (or more accurately feeling) them. Any number of sociological experiments on perception show amazing things. People do not actually see the world around them, they see a heavily filtered world they mind lets them see (watch anything by Darren Brown, amazing)

Scorpinore – I quote “Only the insane have the strength to survive, only those who survive dictate what is sane”… say no more :-)

I read a really interesting article in Discover Magazine.

It said that if a human saw life as it was we would go insane. Our brain slows the images we receive down so that we can recognize them. The world is moving so fast that if we saw it as it was we would not be able to look.

Therefore, the brain adjusts the rate of information transfer. It can also alter the sense of time as it relates to us.

How many of you have been late? Our body system is speeding everything up because we are anxious. But, if we take the time to relax, we can actually slow time down.

Our entire physical existence in this world is based on perception. That's the reason for the filters in the first place. If we were not able to filter out half the stimuli, we would never get anything done.

A.D.D. is a great example of a broken filter. Those who have A.D.D. suffer from a lack of ability to filter out stimuli.

Druidic, what you state about our perceptions coloring our senses is very accurate. Ask anyone who has gone to a "haunted house" and witnessed something. What were you expecting to perceive? Something scary. There are tv shows every Halloween about ghost hunters going to haunted locations to see what they find.

Let's talk about the group thing. A while ago, someone mentioned the study conducted in Europe about a paranormal being that was made up and who went by the name of Phillip. This entity supposedly in a seance revealed to the project participants all the details they had given him. Then when it was told it was no longer believed, Phillip disappeared. This is an example of how a group perception can indeed show the same results. How much of it was real and how much was peer pressure , "sure i heard that too!"

All humans share the same internal wiring and are predictably able to respond in the same fashion to the same stimulus. Put a group of people in a room where there is a red light and no windows and play the sound of someone crying and everyone will be sad and start crying as well. Pass a yawn down the line... etc etc

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HOWEVER, does this also mean that all perceptions of spirits and the like are made up? Are they the garbage that gets caught in our mental filters? Not necessarily. The filters are more often emptied out while a person sleeps and that's where a lot of dreaming plays a part in terms of symbology. Our dreams may consist of people we didn't even know we noticed during the day, but in our dreams we find them attractive or they are interacting with us. Our dreams are the mind's method of playing back the images and stimulus in the filters and emptying them out for the next day. Oftentimes, some of the useful stimuli and thoughts that come out in the dream state are then retained for the waking mind. Hence the reason sometimes that one "sleeps on it" and has the answer in the morning without ever really thinking on it.

Are there perceptions that do not fit the standard filtration system and instead are wholly external entities? It's a good possibility. When we see things that are suspicious or "off" we blame it on the mind playing tricks on us. However if the mind is designed to take useless stimuli and filter them completely until the dream state, then what is it that makes paranormal phenomena "noticeable" to the physical mind? These events are not always a part of "anticipated perception" like the Phillip study. Often they are quite spontaneous in nature and escape the mind's ability to naturally filter them out.

Trivia- that is really crazy! It makes so much sense though.. I mean when you think about it, it is really logical, and I can't believe I never thought of it that way before...

Thats why when we're looking forward to something time seems to go by so slowly, and then when that day finally comes, it seems to fly..

Fallen Lupa, I agree with you. It was crazy. But the more I thought about it the more sense it made.


Jenova, one of the first “disability” (and I use that term lightly) I thought of was ADD when I read the article. Imagine having to put up with the sensory input that comes with seeing the world through a lesser filter than the “normal” (again, used lightly) person.

You are brilliant in your discussion of perception. I work with autistic children and have studied the subject extensively. One area I spent considerable time in was the area of study where the autistic child described their experiences with Autism. One young lady described autism as having a lot of clocks in your head and they all have a different time. Once in a while all the times are the same and she sees life as we do. But, what is the life that she sees? A perception of what she thought was normal.

We cannot describe normal because each of us has a different perception of what that is. Does each of us have a mind programmed to filter out what it considers useless stimuli? Or do we filter out what our feelings dictate. For example, on a day when everything is going perfect, do we see the man and woman who are obviously in a damaged relationship that is screaming unhappiness? Or, do we only see the newlyweds?

Our mind plays tricks on us because it occasionally has to. I agree with you 100% that paranormal activity is noticeable because they are spontaneous and escape the filter.

Excellent discussion. This is why I love the forum!

perceptions are changed everyday, ghostsor not, your on actionschange perceptions.

the corner of my eye to me would be an improvement, I see poeple that are not threre or are but others dont see, (this is since the age of 7) and sometimes they speak to me, and no one ears them..(no I am not ding ding in the head)
If it was my brain doing tricks then I think the medecin I was given to balance my brain chemical would have elemitated this, but ti did not.Smellls this happens less, but the feeling of cold and being touch often tho.