Why do we believe in ghosts? Some psychologists have been surprised by the findings

Shortly after World War II, Winston Churchill was visiting the White House when he was said to have had a strange experience. He had met Abraham Lincoln's ghost.

And Arthur Conan Doyle spoke with ghosts through the media while Alan Turing believed in telepathic. Three men, who were all known for their fragile thinking, could not stop themselves from believing in the impossible. You can join them. According to recent surveys, up to three quarters of Americans believe in abnormal things, while nearly one in five claim to have actually seen a ghost.

Exulted by these ongoing beliefs, psychologists have begun to see why some of us cannot give up old superstitions and folk traditions.

Some paranormal experiences are easily explained, based on brain damage, reports “BBC”, report Periscope. When we look at some invisible moving objects, it seems to be in accordance with the damage of some right hemisphere regions that are responsible for visual processing; certain forms of epilepsy, meanwhile, may cause the thrilling feeling that someone is hitting you by.

Meanwhile, experiences outside the body have been accepted by neurological studies, while some visual illusions can confuse healthy brains and create mythic beings.

Any combination of fatigue, drugs, alcohol and light tricks can contribute to single and isolated discoveries, as was reported by Churchill. But what about the experiences of people like Conan Doyle, who seemed to have seen other worldly actions on a daily basis?

Religious psychologists have been suspicious that a belief in prenormality can be a kind of shield from even more severe world truths.

The idea is that when something unexpected happens, death, natural disaster, or job loss, the brain tries to find answers, seeking to find a meaning under chaotic circumstances. It's such an adventure state that if it can't get control objectively, we'll achieve it by perceiving more structures around us, even if there's no”, says Jennifer Wilson at Texas University, who studies model perceptions, judgment and decision making.

Anthropomorphosis is another common way that we try to understand the events, says Adam Waytz at Northwestern University in Illinois.

So we might think that a spirit is behind a storm or that a demon is moving us to get sick instead of acknowledging that we have no control over this matter; and if a branch is spying on your window, you might be more inclined to imagine that it is a ghost that sends you a message. We create ghost beliefs, because we don't like to believe that space is random”, says Waytz. Again, this seems to be more common when we feel less control over our lives. /Periscopi/