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parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena ( extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related t ...
, an apparitional experience is an anomalous experience characterized by the apparent perception of either a living being or an inanimate object without there being any material stimulus for such a perception. In academic discussion, the term "apparitional experience" is preferred to the term "
ghost A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to re ...
" because: # The term ghost implies that some element of the human being survives death and, at least under certain circumstances, can make itself perceptible to living human beings. There are other competing explanations of apparitional experiences. # Firsthand accounts of apparitional experiences differ in many respects from their fictional counterparts in literary or traditional
ghost stories A ghost story is any piece of fiction, or drama, that includes a ghost, or simply takes as a premise the possibility of ghosts or characters' belief in them."Ghost Stories" in Margaret Drabble (ed.), ''Oxford Companion to English Literature''. ...
and
films A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...
(see below). # The content of apparitional experiences includes living beings, both human and animal, and even inanimate objects.


History of the concept

Attempts to apply modern scientific or investigative standards to the study of apparitional experiences began with the work of Edmund Gurney,
Frederic W. H. Myers Frederic William Henry Myers (6 February 1843 – 17 January 1901) was a British poet, classicist, philologist, and a founder of the Society for Psychical Research. Myers' work on psychical research and his ideas about a "subliminal self" ...
and
Frank Podmore Frank Podmore (5 February 1856 – 14 August 1910) was an English author, and founding member of the Fabian Society. He is best known as an influential member of the Society for Psychical Research and for his sceptical writings on spiritualism. ...
, who were leading figures in the early years of the
Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...
(founded in 1882). Their motive, as with most of the early work of the Society, was to provide evidence for human survival after death. For this reason they had a particular interest in what are known as "crisis cases". These are cases in which a person reports having a hallucinatory experience, visual or otherwise, which apparently represents someone at a distance, this experience subsequently being considered to have coincided with that person's death, or a significant life event of some kind. If the temporal coincidence of the crisis and the distant apparitional experience cannot be explained by any conventional means, then in
parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena ( extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related t ...
the presumption is made that some as yet unknown form of communication, such as
telepathy Telepathy () is the purported vicarious transmission of information from one person's mind to another's without using any known human sensory channels or physical interaction. The term was first coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Frederic ...
(a term coined by Myers) has taken place. While it may be said that the work of Gurney and his colleagues failed to provide convincing evidence for either telepathy or survival of death, the large collection of firsthand written accounts which resulted from their methods may nevertheless be regarded as providing a valuable body of data concerning the
phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
of
hallucinations in the sane Anomalous experiences, such as so-called benign hallucinations, may occur in a person in a state of good mental and physical health, even in the apparent absence of a transient trigger factor such as fatigue, intoxication or sensory deprivation. T ...
. A notable later discussion of apparitional experiences was that of G. N. M. Tyrrell, also a leading member of the Society for Psychical Research of his day. Tyrrell accepted the hallucinatory character of the experience, pointing out that it is virtually unknown for firsthand accounts to claim that apparitional figures leave any of the normal physical effects, such as footprints in snow, that one would expect of a real person. However, Tyrrell develops the idea that the apparition may be a way for the unconscious part of the mind to bring to consciousness information that has been paranormally acquired – in crisis cases, for example. He introduces an evocative metaphor of a mental "stage-carpenter", behind the scenes in the unconscious part of the mind, and constructing the quasi-perceptual experience that eventually appears on the stage of consciousness, so that it embodies paranormal information in a symbolic way, a person drowning at a distance appearing soaked in water, for example. The study and discussion of apparitions developed in a different direction in the 1970s, with the work of
Celia Green Celia Elizabeth Green (born 26 November 1935) is a British writer on philosophical skepticism and psychology. Biography Green's parents were both primary school teachers, who together authored a series of geography textbooks which became know ...
and Charles McCreery. They were not primarily interested in the question of whether apparitions could shed any light on the existence or otherwise of telepathy, or in the survival question; instead they were concerned to analyse a large number of cases with a view to providing a
taxonomy Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
of the different types of experience, viewed simply as a type of anomalous perceptual experience or
hallucination A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinati ...
. One of the points that was highlighted by their work was point (2) listed above, namely that "real-life" accounts of apparitional experiences differ markedly from the traditional or literary ghost story. These are some of the more notable differences, at least as indicated by their own collection of 1800 firsthand accounts: * Subjects of apparitional experiences are by no means always frightened by the experience; indeed they may find them soothing or reassuring at times of crisis or ongoing stress in their lives. * Spontaneous apparitional experiences tend to happen in humdrum or everyday surroundings, and under conditions of low central nervous system arousal, most often in the subject's own home – while doing housework, for example. By contrast, subjects who visit reputedly haunted locations in hopes of "seeing a ghost" are more often than not disappointed. * Apparitions tend to be reported as appearing solid and not transparent; indeed they may be so realistic in a variety of ways as to deceive the percipient as to their hallucinatory nature; in some cases the subject only achieves insight after the experience has ended. * It is unusual for an apparitional figure to engage in any verbal interaction with the percipient; this is consistent with the finding that the majority of such experiences only involve one sense (most commonly the visual).


Psychological implications


Psychological theories of perception

Apparitional experiences have relevance to psychological theories of
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...
, and in particular to the distinction between top-down and bottom-up approaches (cf. article on
Top-down and bottom-up design Top-down and bottom-up are both strategies of information processing and knowledge ordering, used in a variety of fields including software, humanistic and scientific theories (see systemics), and management and organization. In practice, they ...
). Top-down theories, such as that of Richard Langton Gregory, who conceives of perception as a process whereby the brain makes a series of hypotheses about the external world, stress the importance of central factors such as memory and expectation in determining the phenomenological content of perception; while the bottom-up approach, exemplified by the work of James J. Gibson, emphasises the role of the external sensory stimulus. Apparitional experiences would seem to lend support to the importance of central factors, since they represent a form of quasi-perceptual experience in which the role of external stimuli is minimal or possibly non-existent, while the experience nevertheless continues to be phenomenologically indistinguishable from normal perception, at least in some cases.


The concept of schizotypy

The interest of apparitional experiences to psychology has acquired an added dimension in recent years with the development of the concept of
schizotypy In psychology, schizotypy is a theoretical concept that posits a continuum of personality characteristics and experiences, ranging from normal dissociative, imaginative states to extreme states of mind related to psychosis, especially schizophr ...
or psychosis-proneness. This is conceived of as a dimension of personality, continuously distributed throughout the normal population, and analogous to the dimensions of
extraversion The traits of extraversion (also spelled extroversion Retrieved 2018-02-21.) and introversion are a central dimension in some human personality theories. The terms ''introversion'' and ''extraversion'' were introduced into psychology by Carl J ...
or
neuroticism In the study of psychology, neuroticism has been considered a fundamental personality trait. For example, in the Big Five approach to personality trait theory, individuals with high scores for neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody ...
. As long as mental illness is regarded under the disease model, according to which a person either does or does not 'have'
schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social w ...
or
manic depression Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...
, just as a person either does or does not have syphilis or tuberculosis, then to talk of the occurrence of an apparitional or hallucinatory experience in a normal person is either an
oxymoron An oxymoron (usual plural oxymorons, more rarely oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposing meanings within a word or phrase that creates an ostensible self-contradiction. An oxymoron can be used as a rhetorical devi ...
, or to be taken as an indication of latent or incipient
psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavi ...
. If, on the contrary, a dimensional view of the matter is taken, it becomes easier to conceive of how normal people, more or less high on the putative schizotypy dimension, might be more or less prone to anomalous perceptual experiences, without their ever tipping over into psychosis. Green and McCreery's identification of a class of what they called 'reassuring apparitions' is of particular interest in this regard, as it suggests that the experiencing of hallucinations may even have an
adaptive Adaptation, in biology, is the process or trait by which organisms or population better match their environment Adaptation may also refer to: Arts * Adaptation (arts), a transfer of a work of art from one medium to another ** Film adaptation, a ...
effect in certain subjects, making them better able to cope with adverse life events. This would fit with the model of schizotypy as essentially a normal dimension of personality, and might help to explain why the proneness to anomalous perceptual experiences has apparently not been 'weeded out' by the process of
natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...
.


Philosophical implications


Direct realism

Apparitional experiences also have implications for the
philosophy of perception The philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world.cf. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-epi ...
. The occurrence of hallucinations, that is, perceptual experiences 'having the character of sense perception, but without relevant or adequate sensory stimulation .., have long been one of the standard objections to the philosophical theory of
direct realism Direct may refer to: Mathematics * Directed set, in order theory * Direct limit of (pre), sheaves * Direct sum of modules, a construction in abstract algebra which combines several vector spaces Computing * Direct access (disambiguation), ...
. According to this theory we are in some sense in direct contact with the external world when we seem to be perceiving it, and not merely in direct contact with some mediating representation in our mind, such as a sense-datum or an image, which may or may not correspond to external reality. The psychologist J.J. Gibson, referred to above, became an advocate of the philosophical theory of direct realism. Hallucinatory experiences reported by sane people do not pose any new problem in principle for the theory of direct realism, other than that posed already by the more widely discussed hallucinations reported by people in a state of psychosis or under other abnormal conditions such as
sensory deprivation Sensory deprivation or perceptual isolation is the deliberate reduction or removal of stimuli from one or more of the senses. Simple devices such as blindfolds or hoods and earmuffs can cut off sight and hearing, while more complex devices can ...
. However, they do pose the problem in a particularly stark way, for the following reasons:


Scepticism about the status of verbal reports

In the case of hallucinations reported to have occurred in pathological or abnormal states there is some scope for uncertainty about the accuracy, or even the meaning, of the percipient's verbal report. Horowitz, for example, summarising his experience of questioning patients with chronic schizophrenia about their visual experiences during painting sessions, wrote: 'It was necessary to persist beyond initial verbal descriptions of their hallucinations, and insist that the patient describe and draw what he had seen. Initial descriptions of "vicious snakes" might then be drawn and redescribed as wavy lines. "Two armies struggling over my soul" arose from the subjective experience of seeing moving sets of dots. "Spiders" might be reduced, when the patient stated and drew what he actually saw, to a few radiating lines. In drawings of their hallucinations patients could often distinguish between those forms which duplicated what they saw with their eyes from those forms which were what they "made out of it".' Such difficulties of interpretation are much less obvious in the case of written reports by ostensibly normal subjects, in good health and not medicated at the time of the experience.


Extreme realism of the experience

At least some of the apparitional experiences reported by normal subjects appear to mimic normal perception to such a degree that the subject is deceived into thinking that what they are experiencing actually is normal perception. Similar close mimicking of normal perception is reported by some of the subjects of a
lucid dream A lucid dream is a type of dream in which the dreamer becomes aware that they are dreaming while dreaming. During a lucid dream, the dreamer may gain some amount of control over the dream characters, narrative, or environment; however, this is ...
and out-of-body experiences, which therefore pose similar problems for the theory of direct realism.


Representationalism

Apparitional experiences appear ''
prima facie ''Prima facie'' (; ) is a Latin expression meaning ''at first sight'' or ''based on first impression''. The literal translation would be 'at first face' or 'at first appearance', from the feminine forms of ''primus'' ('first') and ''facies'' (' ...
'' more compatible with the philosophical theory of representationalism. According to this theory, the immediate objects of experience when we are perceiving the world normally are representations of the world, rather than the world itself. These representations have been variously called
sense-data The theory of sense data is a view in the philosophy of perception, popularly held in the early 20th century by philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, C. D. Broad, H. H. Price, A. J. Ayer, and G. E. Moore. Sense data are taken to be mind-depen ...
or images. In the case of an apparitional experience one might say that the subject is aware of sense-data or images which happen not to correspond to, or represent, the external world in the normal way. The philosophical implications of hallucinatory experiences in the sane are discussed by McCreery.McCreery, C. (2006). "Perception and Hallucination: the Case for Continuity." ''Philosophical Paper No. 2006-1''. Oxford: Oxford Foru
Online PDF
He argues that they provide empirical support for the theory of representationalism rather than direct realism.


See also

*
Philosophy of perception The philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world.cf. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-epi ...
*
Bilocation Bilocation, or sometimes multilocation, is an alleged psychic or miraculous ability wherein an individual or object is located (or appears to be located) in two distinct places at the same time. Reports of bilocational phenomena have been made i ...
*
Doppelgänger A doppelgänger (), a compound noun formed by combining the two nouns (double) and (walker or goer) (), doppelgaenger or doppelganger is a biologically unrelated look-alike, or a double, of a living person. In fiction and mythology, a doppelg ...
*
Etiäinen In Finnish folklore, all places and things, and also human beings, have a haltija (a genius, guardian spirit) of their own. One such haltija is called etiäinen—an image, doppelgänger, or just an impression that goes ahead of a person, doing ...
*
Marian apparition A Marian apparition is a reported supernatural appearance by Mary, the mother of Jesus, or a series of related such appearances during a period of time. In the Catholic Church, in order for a reported appearance to be classified as a Marian a ...
*
Private revelation Private revelation is, in Christian theology, a message from God which can come in a variety of types. Roman Catholic theology According to the ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'', public revelation was complete in New Testament times, but de ...
* Sleep paralysis * Shadow person *
Vardøger Vardøger, also known as ''vardyvle'' or ''vardyger'', is a spirit predecessor in Scandinavian folklore. Stories typically include instances that are nearly déjà vu in substance, but in reverse, where a spirit with the subject's footsteps, voi ...
*
List of parapsychology topics Parapsychology is a field of research that studies a number of ostensible paranormal phenomena, including telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation, and apparitional experiences. Essence of parap ...


References


Sources

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Apparitional Experience Parapsychology Ghosts Apparitions Hallucinations